Solutions Architect

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical vision for CMS as it merges and modernizes its enterprise knowledge and data systems into a single, AI‑driven platform, reducing manual effort, improving data accuracy, and enhancing transparency for stakeholders.
• Own the architecture. Design a robust, modern enterprise architecture built on AWS, guided by the AWS Well‑Architected Framework, the USDS playbook, and Twelve‑Factor App principles, while minimizing on‑premises footprint and maintaining strong disaster recovery.
• Steer a seamless, low‑risk transition and ongoing operations, meeting infrastructure and application availability SLAs without disrupting CMS’s core business.
• Merge two systems without breaking either. Apply patterns like strangler‑fig and cyclomatic‑complexity analysis to identify, prioritize, and sequence refactor, integration, and modernization opportunities.
• Design for change. Build modular systems using containerization, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD so the platform can flex with CMS’s evolving strategies and new initiatives.
• Partner with the AI Lead to identify and architect automation opportunities, including LLM‑driven and automated data‑collection strategies.
• Establish observability and insight. Work with the team to stand up continuous monitoring (Cloud Watch, New Relic, Splunk) and turn performance, health, and cost data into decisions.
• Be the bridge between technology and business. Translate stakeholder needs into technical direction and explain technical trade‑offs to non‑technical audiences with clarity.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship. Set engineering standards, guide the development team, and grow the technical capability of the people around you.

• A bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in solutions architecture, software engineering, or systems engineering, including significant time architecting AWS cloud environments.
• Deep expertise in AWS services, cloud architecture patterns, and modern best practices.
• Strong command of modern engineering practices – microservices, containerization (Docker), infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible), and CI/CD (Jenkins, Git Lab CI).
• A track record of leading the technical direction of complex, distributed systems and guiding engineering teams.
• Proficiency in one or more programming/scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash, Go) and the credibility that comes from having built things yourself.
• Excellent communication skills, with a real talent for presenting complex technical concepts to both engineers and stakeholders.