What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal Network Security Architect position at Poolside Infrastructure Company?
About PIC
At PIC we're not just building data centers; we're reimagining how AI infrastructure gets developed, financed, and scaled by combining hyperscale-grade facilities with direct access to energy, land, and fiber at a scope that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Backed by a best-in-class supply chain, world-class partners, and advanced partnerships with major hyperscale customers, PIC is poised to become a multi-billion dollar platform with ambitions to layer cloud, compute, and advanced manufacturing on top of our energy foundation.
If you want to work at the intersection of AI, energy, and infrastructure at a scale that will shape the next decade of compute, join our team.
About The Role
We are seeking a Principal Network Security Architect – IT & OT Infrastructure to define and lead the security architecture for a hyperscale AI data center campus serving multiple leading hyperscale tenants. This role is responsible for securing backbone connectivity, campus IT networks, and operational technology (OT) environments that support critical infrastructure systems.
This is a Greenfield opportunity in a startup environment, where you will establish security architecture, segmentation models, and design standards from the ground up. You will operate as a hands-on technical leader, working closely with network, platform, and infrastructure teams to build a secure-by-design environment, while also contributing to implementation, operations, and incident response.
What You’ll Do
At PIC we're not just building data centers; we're reimagining how AI infrastructure gets developed, financed, and scaled by combining hyperscale-grade facilities with direct access to energy, land, and fiber at a scope that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Backed by a best-in-class supply chain, world-class partners, and advanced partnerships with major hyperscale customers, PIC is poised to become a multi-billion dollar platform with ambitions to layer cloud, compute, and advanced manufacturing on top of our energy foundation.
If you want to work at the intersection of AI, energy, and infrastructure at a scale that will shape the next decade of compute, join our team.
About The Role
We are seeking a Principal Network Security Architect – IT & OT Infrastructure to define and lead the security architecture for a hyperscale AI data center campus serving multiple leading hyperscale tenants. This role is responsible for securing backbone connectivity, campus IT networks, and operational technology (OT) environments that support critical infrastructure systems.
This is a Greenfield opportunity in a startup environment, where you will establish security architecture, segmentation models, and design standards from the ground up. You will operate as a hands-on technical leader, working closely with network, platform, and infrastructure teams to build a secure-by-design environment, while also contributing to implementation, operations, and incident response.
What You’ll Do
- Define and own the network security architecture across backbone, campus IT, and OT environments.
- Design and implement segmentation strategies between IT, OT, and tenant networks.
- Establish zero trust architecture principles for network access and service communication.
- Define security controls for north-south and east-west traffic across the campus.
- Architect secure remote access and identity-based access control models for users and systems.
- Design and secure OT network environments supporting systems such as BMS, EPMS, and DCIM.
- Partner with network and platform architects to embed security into logical and physical designs.
- Define standards for firewalls, NAC, microsegmentation, encryption, and policy enforcement.
- Establish security monitoring, detection, and response capabilities, including integration with SIEM and observability platforms.
- Define and integrate security telemetry pipelines and SIEM architecture to enable detection, correlation, and incident response across IT and OT environments.
- Contribute to security operations, incident response, and troubleshooting as part of a small, high-impact team.
- Serve as the technical authority for network security architecture and risk decisions.
- 15 years of experience in network security, infrastructure security, or security architecture roles.
- Proven experience designing network security architectures for large-scale or critical infrastructure environments.
- Strong expertise in network segmentation, zero trust architectures, and secure design principles.
- Experience securing both IT and Operational Technology (OT) networks (e.g., BMS, EPMS, industrial systems).
- Deep understanding of network security controls including firewalls, NAC, microsegmentation, and encryption.
- Experience designing secure access models and identity-driven networking architectures.
- Experience integrating security monitoring, telemetry, SIEM, and detection systems into infrastructure platforms.
- Proven ability to operate as a hands-on individual contributor, delivering architecture, implementation, and operational support.
- Experience working in hyperscale data centers, colocation, or cloud environments.
- Familiarity with industrial security frameworks (e.g., IEC 62443, NIST CSF).
- Experience with security automation and policy-as-code frameworks.
- Experience collaborating with construction and facility teams on secure infrastructure design.
- Certifications such as CISSP, CCIE Security, or equivalent advanced security certifications.
- Occasional travel to the data center campus and partner locations.
- Comfortable operating in a hands-on, fast-paced startup environment, taking ownership across design, build, and early operations, and working closely with a small, high-impact team.
- Interview w/Molly Anderson, Senior Manager of People Operations
- Interview w/Senthil Ganesan, Director of Network & Platform Infrastructure
- Interview w/ Zach Pritchard, Security Lead
- Interview w/Lance Smith, VP of Data Centers