Solutions Architect

Remote-First  |  Herndon, VA (Periodic On-Site)

The Solutions Architect plays a central role in a major modernization initiative — re-engineering and re-platforming mission-critical applications that support multiple lines of business.

You''ll work collaboratively across the federated architecture team, application development, infrastructure, the PMO, business units, the Chief Data Office, and external partners. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in transformative environments and excels at rapidly evaluating complex technical concepts.

Architecture & Strategy

•        Develop current and future state architectures that advance customer experience, operational excellence, and brand growth

•        Define strategies and roadmaps for application modernization and cloud migration, including refactoring, re-platforming, and cloud-native adoption

•        Build platform technology roadmaps spanning SaaS, PaaS, custom software, third-party, and open source solutions

•        Establish standards for internal and external integrations to ensure loosely coupled, scalable architecture

Solution Design

•        Develop a deep understanding of business processes, application architectures, and supporting systems to design solutions that meet enterprise and business requirements

•        Create design artifacts — including logical, physical, functional views, process flow diagrams, and integration diagrams — for project stakeholders

•        Manage project constraints (scope, schedule, budget, quality, risk) and make technology decisions that reconcile them with project goals

•        Embed security-by-design principles and adapt designs to evolving security, risk, and compliance requirements

Governance & Collaboration

•        Present solution designs to the Architecture Review Board (ARB) and collaborate with stakeholders to refine them before submission

•        Contribute to architecture standards, design patterns, and governance processes

•        Investigate new solutions using custom-developed, commercial, and open source software

Prototyping & Validation

•        Work independently or collaboratively to prototype and validate architectural approaches

•        Develop proofs of concept and technical validations to support strategic decision-making and reduce delivery risk

Education

•        Bachelor''s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field

•        A combination of education and experience, including military service, will also be considered

•        Master''s degree preferred

Experience

•        10+ years of software development experience in mid-to-large organizations, with technical leadership experience

•        5+ years defining architectures — current state, future state, and enterprise technology roadmaps — working with commercial, open source, and cloud solutions

•        Demonstrated experience applying enterprise architecture standards: microservices, event-driven architectures, API-led integration, and cloud-native design patterns

•        Strong hands-on knowledge of AWS services across compute, integration, data, security, DevSecOps, and observability

•        Deep understanding of container orchestration (Kubernetes/EKS, ECS/Fargate), including deployment, scaling, resiliency, and service-to-service communication

•        Experience designing for high availability, disaster recovery, security, and observability in cloud environments

•        Exposure to enterprise-scale data platforms: EMR, Data Lake, Lakehouse, or analytical solutions

•        Experience with authentication and authorization protocols: OAuth 2.0, SAML, OIDC, and RBAC

•        Familiarity with OWASP security best practices and Section 508 accessibility compliance

•        Proficiency creating logical, physical, and functional views; process flow diagrams; and system integration diagrams

Preferred

•        AWS Architect certification (Associate or Professional)

•        5–10 years of programming experience with Java, Spring Framework, Spring Boot, Python, JavaScript, or Angular

•        Hands-on experience with AWS services including VPC, API Gateway, ECS/Fargate, EKS, EC2, S3, DynamoDB, RDS/Aurora (PostgreSQL), IAM, Secrets Manager, KMS, CloudWatch, CloudFront, Route 53, and AWS Organizations

•        Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases

•        Strong negotiation, influencing, problem-solving, and analytical skills

•        Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to present complex technical topics clearly to diverse audiences

•        Self-motivated with the ability to make timely, sound decisions

•        Demonstrates our core values: customer focus, process optimization, effective communication, collaboration, and authenticity

This is a remote-first position. Candidates must reside within reasonable commuting distance of Herndon, VA, or be willing to travel there periodically based on departmental needs.