Lead Active Directory Engineer

Posted:
4/30/2026, 8:24:12 AM

Location(s):
Delaware, United States ⋅ Wilmington, Delaware, United States

Experience Level(s):
Senior

Field(s):
IT & Security

Workplace Type:
On-site

This role is four days onsite at our Wilmington, DE Tech Hub location, with the flexibility to work from home one day per week

Overview:   

Responsible for designing, securing, and operating Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) in regulated, high-availability environments. Acts as knowledge resource for and trains less experienced engineers. Completes day-to-day support activities and special projects.

Primary Responsibilities:

Enterprise Active Directory Architecture

  • Proven expertise supporting large-scale, Tier‑1 identity infrastructures with strict uptime, latency, and change‑control requirements

  • Strong experience with:

    • Multi-domain and multi-forest designs aligned to business units, regions, or regulatory boundaries

    • Forest and external trusts supporting M&A, joint ventures, and third-party integrations

    • FSMO role placement optimized for resilience and auditability

  • Advanced understanding of Active Directory–integrated DNS, split‑brain DNS, and secure name resolution models

Hybrid Identity & Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD)

  • Extensive experience integrating on-prem AD with Microsoft Entra ID in regulated financial environments

  • Hands-on implementation of:

    • Entra Connect (Cloud Sync and Traditional)

    • Password Hash Sync, Pass-through Authentication, and Federation

  • Strong experience with:

    • Conditional Access aligned to regulatory and risk-based controls

    • Hybrid Join, Entra ID Join, and legacy device coexistence

  • Understanding of identity lifecycle controls to support joiners, movers, leavers, and separation-of-duties requirements

Security, Compliance & Risk Controls

  • Expert-level knowledge of Active Directory security hardening in financial services, including:

    • Tiered administrative model (Tier 0/1/2)

    • Dedicated admin forests or hardened admin boundaries (where applicable)

    • Privileged Access Workstations (PAWs) / Secure Admin Workstations

  • Experience enforcing least privilege, role separation, and dual‑control models

  • Deep familiarity with threats targeting financial institutions:

    • Credential theft, Kerberoasting, Pass-the-Hash/Ticket

    • Delegation and ACL abuse

  • Hands-on experience with:

    • Privileged Identity Management (PIM)

    • Regular access reviews and entitlement recertification

  • Strong alignment with Zero Trust and defense-in-depth identity strategies

Regulatory & Audit Readiness

  • Demonstrated experience supporting audits and controls for financial regulations and frameworks, such as:

    • SOX, GLBA, PCI DSS, SOC 2

    • Internal risk management and model governance requirements

  • Ability to design AD environments that support:

    • Strong logging and traceability

    • Tamper-resistant audit logs

    • Evidence generation for internal and external auditors

Automation & PowerShell

  • Advanced PowerShell expertise for:

    • Controlled, auditable administrative changes

    • Automated provisioning/deprovisioning aligned to compliance workflows

    • Identity reporting for risk, security, and audit teams

  • Experience building automation that integrates with:

    • Change management processes

    • IAM, ticketing, and security tooling

Operations, Resilience & Recovery

  • Deep experience managing:

    • AD replication topology across data centers and regions

    • SYSVOL (DFSR) health and recovery

    • Latency-sensitive authentication dependencies

  • Strong understanding of:

    • AD backup, recovery, and authoritative restore procedures

    • Identity disaster recovery scenarios with defined RTO/RPO

  • Experience implementing monitoring and alerting with a focus on early risk detection

Leadership & Governance

  • Acts as technical authority and escalation point for all directory and identity services

  • Defines and enforces:

    • Enterprise identity standards

    • Secure configuration baselines

    • Operational runbooks and procedures

  • Partners closely with:

    • Information Security and IAM teams

    • Risk, audit, and compliance stakeholders

    • Infrastructure, cloud, and application teams

  • Mentors engineers and reviews designs from a security and risk-first perspective

Education and Experience Required:

  • Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 5 years’ relevant work experience, or in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 9 years’ higher education and/or work experience

Education and Experience Preferred:

  • Advanced understanding of the security system development and infrastructure lifecycle and architecture, and systems design

  • Proven experience with the development and customization of tools utilized in assigned Cybersecurity function

  • Demonstrated ability to translate architecture into technical requirements

  • Proficient level of critical thinking and problem solving ability

  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

  • Experience partnering with leaders to design solutions to business needs.

  • Proficient persuasive communication skills to gain buy-in of others

  • Strong ability to analyze and draw reliable conclusions based on large volumes of quantitative data from diverse sources

  • Ability effectively serves in indirect leadership role

#LI-JB3  #Hybrid

M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $128,100.00 - $213,500.00 (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.

Location

Wilmington, Delaware, United States of America