Cloud Architect

Cloud Architect

Location: Saint Paul, MN (Remote)

Duration: 17 Months

Job Type: C2C,W2

Job Description: Description of Project

The Minnesota Department of Information Technology Services (MNIT) is seeking one full-time resource to work on CloudRAMP, the State of Minnesota project to transition to Microsoft Azure cloud computing services. At a high level, the resource will work directly with the CloudRAMP project team and agencies to plan, design and migrate 70% of on-premise workloads and applications to the Cloud.

Sample Tasks

• Work with product managers, development teams, and other engineering teams to deliver cloud-based solutions which meet the needs of the State.
• Use project management principles and practices sufficient to determine program direction, plan work, set goals, and monitor and evaluate accomplishments.
• Lead complex projects, write project plans, establish priorities, allocate resources/workloads in team environment.
• Sample project work may include:
• Designing complex processes and measurement metrics
• Applying research and analytical skills in evaluating new technologies
• Providing technical decision making with limited resources and precedence
• Developing specific solutions for unique and unprecedented problems
• Analyzing technical problems and implementing solutions under tight time constraints
• Using formal methods of systems analysis
• Develop policy and procedure
• Create documentation, design, and technical artifacts in Microsoft Visio, Excel, PowerPoint and Word
• Use verbal and written communications to interact technically with staff and vendor representatives and functionally with users (present technical concepts to both technical and non-technical staff)
• Present clear and concise reports to executive management/leadership
• Provide knowledge transfer

Desired Skills

• Five years of Cloud Architect experience
• At least two engagements with two different entities in a Cloud Architect role
• Knowledge of Agile project management tools such as Azure DevOps or Jira
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, and ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical staff/end-users.
• Effective customer service skills, including the ability to interact frequently with end-users and other staff.
• Sophisticated troubleshooting skills, including the ability to create and test hypotheses based on relative likelihood, and a willingness and ability to creatively consider all possible causes for a problem and test appropriately.
• Experience designing enterprise cloud solutions leveraging, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
• Excellent understanding of cloud shared responsibility and security models.
• Secure system design and development principles to conform to state and federal guidelines.
• Demonstrated ability to architect complex solutions on public cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with cloud Monitoring and Alerting Solutions, such as Azure Monitor, SCOM, SolarWinds, or others.
• Experience providing governance around cloud services.
• Experience in cloud migration planning, design, and process for large enterprise organizations, applications, and database services.
• Scripting with Python and/or PowerShell.
• Experience with Infrastructure Configuration Solutions, such as Azure Automation, Azure Orchestrator, SCCM Desired State Configuration, Azure Desired State Configuration, Puppet, Chef, or others.
• Designing and implementing with cloud IaaS and PaaS Services.
• Knowledge and usage of AWS CloudFormation or Azure Resource Manager, Terraform and/or Azure Bicep.
• Experience leveraging development pipelines, DevOps philosophies and working with infrastructure-as-code (IaC).