Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-hitting IAM architecture gig where you'll be tearing down legacy provisioning logic and standing up a modern, automated identity lifecycle for a complex higher-ed or enterprise environment. You're walking into a space that desperately needs to untangle dual affiliations (like employee/student mix-ups), messy Active Directory silos, and shaky HRIS integrations. If you enjoy mapping out authoritative sources and fixing broken joiner-mover-leaver pipelines without breaking production, this is a solid project.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
Expect to spend your days designing target-state architectures, figuring out how to wrangle data flowing out of Workday or Banner, and establishing hard safeguards against accidental mass-deletions. You'll be bridging the gap between legacy on-prem AD and modern cloud ecosystems like Microsoft Entra ID and OneLogin. The real challenge here is building robust error-handling and reconciliation processes that won't leave downstream systems out of sync when edge-case identities crop up.
The Core Tech Stack
You need deep, battle-tested expertise with Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, and major HR/SIS platforms like Workday or Banner. This isn't just a slide-deck architecture role; you're expected to know your way around SCIM, Microsoft Graph, PowerShell, and SQL to actually prove out your designs. A firm grasp of OIDC, SAML, and LDAP is non-negotiable because you'll be overhauling everything from custom scripts to multi-tenant synchronization.
Interview Expectations
Expect the hiring manager to throw a complex edge-case scenario at you involving dual affiliations and conflicting source-of-truth attributes between an ERP and a student information system, and they'll want to hear how you design the resolution logic. They're secretly looking to see if you can balance strict least-privilege security governance with the operational reality of keeping user provisioning from grinding to a halt. Be ready to defend your approach to reconciliation and error-handling safeguards under pressure.
Application Advice
Your resume needs to scream enterprise IAM modernization, not just routine administration. Highlight specific projects where you migrated legacy setups or designed automated joiner, mover, and leaver workflows from scratch. Make sure keywords like Workday, Microsoft Entra ID, SCIM, lifecycle processes, and identity governance are prominent so you can easily clear the automated filters before a senior technical reviewer looks at your background.