Senior Solution Architect

Job Title: Senior Solution Architect Location: Remote / Occasional Visit Employment Type: Full-Time Client: Federal Government Job Summary We are seeking an experienced Senior Solution Architect to lead the technical architecture and design of a modular, cloud-native, open-source platform built for long-term government ownership. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in AWS architecture, microservices, API design, cloud security, and scalable infrastructure, with a strong focus on security, interoperability, resilience, and minimizing vendor lock-in. This role will drive architecture decisions that support secure, mission-critical federal systems while ensuring the platform remains maintainable, extensible, and transferable to government ownership. Key Responsibilities - Solution Architecture: Define and lead end-to-end solution architecture for cloud-native platforms hosted on AWS GovCloud, including microservices, APIs, event-driven systems, and data architectures. - Cloud Infrastructure: Design scalable, resilient, and highly available cloud environments using AWS services, containers, Kubernetes, and infrastructure as code (IaC). - Security & Compliance: Implement Zero Trust principles, least-privilege access, encryption standards, identity and access management (IAM), and secure network architectures. - API & Integration Design: Establish standards for RESTful APIs, event-driven integrations, service interoperability, and secure data exchange. - Architecture Governance: Maintain architecture diagrams, technical documentation, design standards, and architecture decision records. Lead technical design reviews and guide engineering teams on implementation. - Technology Evaluation: Assess and approve architectural components, frameworks, and open-source technologies that support portability, interoperability, sustainability, and reduced vendor dependency. - Performance & Resilience: Design for high availability, peak workloads, fault tolerance, disaster recovery, and operational resilience. - Data Architecture: Define relational and in-memory data strategies, including data access patterns, performance optimization, scalability, and security. - Transition & Knowledge Transfer: Develop architecture and transition plans that enable long-term government ownership, operational independence, and smooth contractor transition-out. - Technical Leadership: Collaborate with development, DevSecOps, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and government stakeholders to align technical solutions with mission and business requirements. Required Qualifications - 12+ years of experience in solution architecture, enterprise architecture, or a closely related technical leadership role. - Strong hands-on experience designing and implementing cloud-native architectures on AWS; AWS GovCloud experience is highly preferred. - Demonstrated expertise in microservices, distributed systems, REST APIs, and event-driven architecture. - Experience with containerization technologies and Kubernetes-based platforms. - Strong understanding of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Zero Trust security, least privilege, encryption, CDN, and Web Application Firewall (WAF) technologies. - Experience designing relational database and in-memory data architectures. - Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automated infrastructure provisioning. - Active AWS Certified Solutions Architect certification. - Strong knowledge of cloud security, system resilience, scalability, availability, and architectural best practices. - Excellent technical documentation, design review, problem-solving, and stakeholder communication skills. Preferred Qualifications - Experience supporting U.S. federal government technology programs. - Experience designing, implementing, or maintaining systems subject to FISMA Moderate security requirements. - Experience with open-source-first architecture and reducing proprietary technology dependencies. - Knowledge of federal cybersecurity requirements, cloud governance, and secure software development practices. - Experience developing platform transition plans, knowledge-transfer documentation, and solutions designed