OPA / POLICY-AS-CODE ENGINEER | IT ARCHITECTURE

OPA / POLICY-AS-CODE ENGINEER — IT ARCHITECTURELocation: Jersey City, NJ — Hybrid, 2–3 Days/WeekEngagement: 3–6 Month Contract-to-HireCompensation: Highly Competitive Compensation, Based on ExpertiseABOUT THE ROLEWe are seeking a highly technical, hands-on OPA / Policy-as-Code Engineer to join a lean IT Architecture team supporting a major global financial-market infrastructure organization that clears and settles trillions of dollars in financial transactions every day.This role is part of a high-visibility Enterprise Backstage / Internal Developer Platform POC focused on building standardized Golden Paths for secure, governed, automated developer self-service.This is a POC WITH AN ENTERPRISE DESTINATION — successful patterns are intended to support broader enterprise adoption.THE CORE TEAMYou will join a lean, highly technical team consisting of:• 3 Multi-Skilled Backstage Engineers• CI/CD Engineers• SRE / Observability Engineers• OPA / Policy-as-Code Engineer — this positionEvery engineer has meaningful ownership, visibility, and impact.WHAT YOU WILL DO• Develop production-quality OPA / Rego policies.• Implement policy enforcement, governance guardrails, and compliance validation within provisioning workflows.• Integrate OPA with Terraform, CI/CD/Jenkins, Backstage, Kubernetes, and OpenShift.• Help determine how Backstage and Golden Paths should integrate with and adhere to the CENTRALIZED ENTERPRISE OPA / POLICY-AS-CODE framework.• Translate governance, security, and compliance requirements into executable policies.• Support cloud governance, IAM, security guardrails, tagging standards, and policy-driven infrastructure automation.• Identify technical and architectural gaps, recommend solutions, and help implement them.WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR• Strong production-level Open Policy Agent (OPA) experience• Strong Rego development experience• Policy-as-Code within CI/CD pipelines• OPA + Terraform integration experience• Kubernetes / OpenShift• Jenkins / CI/CD• Cloud Governance, IAM, Security, and Compliance• Enterprise security patterns• Ability to translate governance requirements into executable Policy-as-CodeSTRONG PLUS• Conftest and/or OPA Gatekeeper• Backstage / Internal Developer Platform experience• Regulated-industry experience — Financial Services, Banking, FinTech, Healthcare, or Government• Experience translating NIST, SOC 2, or internal controls into Policy-as-CodeWHO WE WANTTechnical skills are essential, but they are NOT ENOUGH.We are looking for someone who is:• TECHNICALLY STRONG — deep, hands-on engineering capability• A PROBLEM SOLVER — brings solutions, not just problems• AN INITIATOR — does not wait for tickets or detailed instructions• A TEAM PLAYER — collaborates effectively across a lean engineering team• AN OWNER — takes responsibility through delivery• AN ARCHITECTURAL THINKER — builds for enterprise scale, not just the POCWe want someone comfortable saying:“Here are the options, here are the trade-offs, and here is what I recommend — and I can help build it.”WHY THIS OPPORTUNITYThis is a lean, high-visibility IT Architecture team where every engineer matters.Our guiding principle is:MAKE THE COMPLIANT PATH THE EASIEST PATH FOR THE DEVELOPER.Exceptional performers may be considered for full-time conversion, potentially around the Associate Director level, based on performance, demonstrated value, business need, and leadership approval.HIRING PROCESSTechnical & Behavioral evaluation → Leadership discussion → Final selection/onboarding.