SharePoint/Content Management System Architect

Role - SharePoint/Content Management System Architect

Position Description: The Application Architect (Senior) manages major projects that involve providing professional support services and/or the integration, implementation, and transition of large, complex systems. This individual is responsible for performing the following tasks:

Provide technical design and implementation of e-government solutions, taking responsibility for technical architecture, solution patterns, and implementation oversight.

Lead architecture decisions across applications, infrastructure, integration, and operational domains, ensuring alignment to agency objectives, technical constraints, and compliance requirements.

Ensure development efforts are well planned, traceable to requirements, and compliant with established standards and governance.

Design, develop, and maintain infrastructure and backend applications to meet availability, scalability, performance, and maintainability goals.

Provide expertise with web servers, gateways, application servers, and content management systems, including configuration, performance tuning, and operational readiness practices.

Support web application technologies and middleware solutions enabling API integrations, workflow automation, authentication/authorization patterns, and secure data exchange.

Conduct and document current-state architecture encompassing infrastructure, codebase, integrations, and content operations (including publishing workflows and approvals).

Produce target-state architecture designs with prioritized recommendations for modernization, optimization, and redesign, focusing on risk reduction, sustainability, and improved operational efficiency.

Develop an implementation roadmap that balances enhancements, integrations, and technical debt, aligning milestones to agency priorities, release constraints, and operational windows.

Establish architectural standards, reference patterns, and guardrails across web platforms to improve consistency, reduce defects, and strengthen long-term scalability.

Implement governance mechanisms (architecture reviews, design checkpoints, and technical decision records) to ensure solutions remain aligned to agency standards over time.

Ensure security requirements are incorporated into solution design, integration approaches, and operational procedures.

Champion accessibility (WCAG/ADA and applicable government accessibility requirements, e.g., Section 508 where applicable) and usability requirements in design and architecture decisions.

Incorporate accessible patterns into templates and reusable components, supporting consistent accessible experiences across pages and applications.

Provide technical investigation and initial troubleshooting for production issues (performance, configuration, permissions, integration failures).

Escalate issues with clear reproduction steps, log evidence, and impact analysis to accelerate resolution and reduce recurrence.

Recommend preventive controls (monitoring, alerting, runbooks, and configuration baselines) to improve system resilience.

Lead stakeholder discovery and functionality sessions to translate business needs into feasible technical solutions, user stories, and acceptance criteria.

Support iterative delivery through backlog refinement, architectural review, and release planning.

Research and evaluate new technologies and products for applicability to business processes and agency constraints.

Compare solution alternatives and recommend best-fit options considering cost, risk, compliance, maintainability, and operational overhead

Role and Responsibilities:

Architect and lead enterprise SharePoint/CMS environments supporting secure internal collaboration and scalable public-facing digital services.

Provided ongoing support and maintenance for the Maryland Department of Health s public website (health.maryland.gov) and its numerous subsites.

Establish architecture standards, patterns, and guardrails for web platforms to improve consistency, maintainability, and long-term scalability.

Produce and maintain current-state and target-state architecture artifacts across infrastructure, codebase, integrations, and content operations; provide prioritized modernization recommendations.

Partner with MDH OET Web team for Agile/Scrum teams to deliver platform enhancements, resolve production incidents, and support release planning across Dev/QA/Prod.

Facilitate stakeholder communications including sprint demos, reviews, and technical/non-technical status reporting; manage risks, dependencies, and decision tracking.

Manage source code, documentation, and deployment artifacts using Git-based version control (GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket) with CI/CD practices to support controlled releases.

Participate in code reviews, ensuring code quality, security, and adherence to architecture guidelines.

Maintain and deploy SharePoint/CMS solutions (including custom components) and execute environment promotions across Dev/QA/Prod with repeatable deployment procedures and rollback planning.

Provide help desk assistance: Tier 2/3 technical support via remote troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and coordinated escalations through resolution.

Perform initial technical investigation for production issues (performance, configuration, permissions, integration failures), documenting evidence, logs, and reproducible steps, and recommending corrective/preventive actions.

Implement UI/UX and responsive design standards across SharePoint/CMS sites; champion WCAG accessibility by embedding accessible patterns into templates and reusable components.

Work with the MDH OET Web Team for: Administer SharePoint/CMS security including user provisioning, role/permission design, privilege assignment, and governance enforcement.

Work with the MDH OET & DOIT Teams to implement least privilege, access controls, secure configuration, and privacy/compliance alignment across platform components and integrations.

Build advanced workflows and automation using Power Platform, Azure Apps/Services, Nintex, and custom development beyond out-of-the-box workflows; document support/runbook procedures for operational sustainability.

Provide support to MDH in SharePoint-to- future CMS migration for public-facing sites, including discovery, content strategy, IA mapping, validation, and cutover planning.

Maintain and support cross-platform integrations (e.g. Salesforce, SharePoint, Drupal, M365, and third-party tools), ensuring reliable data exchange, secure authentication, and operational monitoring.

Mentor MDH OET staff on Microsoft 365 capabilities (SharePoint Online, Power Platform, Teams, OneDrive, Viva, Copilot, Azure Apps, future CMS) to accelerate adoption and reduce support burden.

Design Copilot-ready SharePoint architecture using metadata/content types, permission hygiene, and lifecycle policies to improve discovery and search relevance.

Work with MDH OET Web Team for: Design, test, and maintain backup/recovery and operational readiness processes (monitoring, restore validation, environment stability).

Work closely with MDH project managers, developers, and other stakeholders to ensure timely and successful project delivery.

Create, update, and maintain training portals for end users, including delivering training sessions

and producing howto guides, stepbystep instructions, and short training videos.

Education: This position requires a Bachelor s degree from an accredited college or university in Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related scientific or technical discipline. (Note: A Master s degree is preferred.)

General Experience: The proposed candidate must have at least ten (10) years of experience planning, designing, building, and implementing IT application systems. This individual must have led or been chief architect in a major IT applications implementation effort. This individual must also have a strong background in software engineering principles and techniques.

Specialized Experience: The proposed candidate must have at least six (6) years of experience in designing medium to large-scale sites, and management of at least five Internet projects