Technical Solutions 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 for long-term government ownership.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, automated security testing, and cloud-native operational practices.

Key Success Factors
The successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to:

• Design secure, modular, and scalable architectures for complex federal systems.
• Make sound architectural decisions that balance security, performance, cost, and maintainability.
• Promote open standards, reusable components, and minimal vendor lock-in.
• Translate mission and business requirements into practical technical solutions.
• Enable government teams to independently operate, maintain, and evolve the platform over time.

Ideal Candidate: A senior-level architect with deep AWS expertise, strong cloud security fundamentals, proven microservices and API architecture experience, and a commitment to building secure, scalable, open-source-first solutions for federal government ownership.