Senior Access Governance Specialist

Job Title: Senior Access Governance Specialist

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Work Arrangement: 100% Remote — Work From Home

Level: Senior

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Access Governance Specialist to oversee identity and access governance processes, access control reviews, user entitlement management, and compliance monitoring. This role focuses on ensuring that access to business applications, enterprise systems, and sensitive information is appropriately assigned, reviewed, documented, and controlled.

The successful candidate will support the development and improvement of access governance frameworks, strengthen internal security controls, and coordinate with IT, cybersecurity, risk, compliance, and business teams. The position is fully remote and emphasizes access analysis, control assessments, documentation review, reporting, and governance oversight.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and improve identity and access governance policies, standards, procedures, and control frameworks.
• Review user access requests, role assignments, permission structures, and entitlement records against established access policies.
• Coordinate periodic user access certifications and entitlement recertification exercises.
• Assess access privileges using least-privilege and segregation-of-duties principles.
• Identify excessive permissions, inactive accounts, conflicting access rights, and unauthorized entitlement risks.
• Support role-based access control (RBAC) design, role mapping, and access classification activities.
• Review joiner, mover, and leaver processes to ensure access changes are properly documented and controlled.
• Analyze privileged access inventories and support governance reviews of elevated permissions.
• Monitor access review exceptions, remediation actions, and outstanding control deficiencies.
• Maintain accurate digital records of access approvals, certification results, exception registers, and audit evidence.
• Support access governance assessments across enterprise applications, cloud platforms, databases, and business systems.
• Coordinate with application owners, system administrators, business managers, and information security teams to resolve access-related issues.
• Evaluate identity lifecycle management processes and recommend improvements to access provisioning and deprovisioning controls.
• Assist with segregation-of-duties analysis and review potential conflicts across business-critical roles.
• Prepare access governance dashboards, management reports, risk summaries, and compliance status updates.
• Support internal audits, external assessments, regulatory examinations, and information security compliance reviews.
• Contribute to the development of automated access review workflows and governance reporting processes.
• Monitor changes in cybersecurity standards, regulatory expectations, and access management best practices.
• Recommend corrective actions to strengthen identity governance, accountability, and access control effectiveness.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, or a related discipline.
• Significant professional experience in identity and access management (IAM), access governance, information security, or IT risk management.
• Strong understanding of access control principles, identity lifecycle management, RBAC, and least-privilege practices.
• Experience conducting user access reviews, entitlement certifications, segregation-of-duties assessments, and access risk analysis.
• Familiarity with privileged access management (PAM), single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and directory services.
• Knowledge of enterprise IAM and governance platforms such as SailPoint, Saviynt, Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, or equivalent solutions.
• Understanding of information security frameworks and standards such as ISO 27001, NIST, COBIT, and applicable UAE regulatory requirements.
• Experience preparing access governance reports, audit evidence, control documentation, and remediation plans.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to interpret complex access structures and permission relationships.
• Excellent documentation, communication, and stakeholder coordination skills.
• High attention to detail and sound judgment when handling sensitive identity and access information.
• Ability to manage multiple governance activities independently in a fully remote environment.
• Professional certifications such as CISA, CISSP, CRISC, CISM, or relevant IAM certifications are advantageous.

What We Offer

• A fully remote working arrangement from home.
• Competitive compensation aligned with qualifications and professional experience.
• Opportunities to strengthen enterprise cybersecurity and identity governance controls.
• Exposure to enterprise IAM platforms, access review programs, and information security frameworks.
• Professional development in cybersecurity, IT governance, and risk management.
• A collaborative working environment involving technology, security, compliance, and business teams.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit an updated CV highlighting relevant experience in identity and access management, access governance, entitlement reviews, privileged access oversight, and IT risk management.

Application Subject: Application – Senior Access Governance Specialist (UAE Remote)

Candidates should confirm applicable employment arrangements, residency requirements, and work authorization before accepting an offer.

Important Role Scope: This is a fully remote access governance, entitlement analysis, documentation review, control assessment, and compliance coordination position. Physical infrastructure operations, hardware servicing, and on-site security inspections must be performed by qualified local personnel. Production access provisioning, privileged administration, emergency access activation, incident containment, legal holds, sensitive information disclosure decisions, regulatory submissions, and formal compliance attestations must be performed or approved by appropriately authorized personnel in accordance with established security and governance procedures.