Cloud Architect, Lead

This position is contingent upon award of a federal cloud modernization contract. Candidates may be considered for future opportunities should the contract be awarded and project requirements finalized.

The Cloud Architect (Lead) provides overall technical leadership for USDA Rural Development’s IT system portfolio migration to a secure, scalable, and cost-effective government cloud environment. This role is responsible for defining cloud adoption strategy, designing compliant cloud architectures, overseeing migration execution, and ensuring alignment with federal security, compliance, and operational requirements throughout the lifecycle of the task order. 

This role is primarily remote. However, occasional travel to government facilities in the Washington, DC metropolitan area may be required for stakeholder meetings, architecture reviews, or program milestones. Candidates must be willing and able to travel periodically as mission needs dictate. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead development of the Cloud Adoption Strategy, including stakeholder interviews, application portfolio assessments, migration waves, timelines, and success metrics
• Design secure government cloud architectures, including landing zones, hub-and-spoke networking, RBAC, policy enforcement, key management, and hybrid integration
• Oversee creation of architecture artifacts and technical deliverables, including cloud strategy documents, architecture diagrams, and migration plans
• Ensure cloud architectures meet FIPS 199, FISMA, FedRAMP, and NIST 800-53 requirements
• Guide implementation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) standards and reusable templates
• Support security architecture reviews, risk assessments, and compliance activities
• Provide technical leadership across cloud migration engineers, DevSecOps engineers, security/compliance analysts, and FinOps specialists
• Serve as a primary technical interface with Government stakeholders, CORs, and technical monitors

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree (or higher) in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field
• 8 years of experience in designing and implementing cloud solutions for federal or large enterprise environments
• At least one current professional cloud certification (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Google Professional Cloud Architect)
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale cloud migration projects, including hybrid and multi-cloud architectures
• Deep knowledge of FedRAMP, FISMA, NIST 800-53, and federal security/compliance frameworks
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
• Experience working in U.S. federal government environments or similarly regulated enterprise environments (e.g., financial services, healthcare, utilities) with formal security, compliance, and audit requirements. 
• Candidates must be comfortable operating in compliance-driven environments where security, documentation, and audit readiness are integral to delivery timelines.