Location: United States – Virginia – Reston

DESCRIPTION
Industry: Information Technology – Computer Software
Job Category: Information Technology – IT Project Management

The organization, the national educational organization, is conducting a search for a Cloud Architect for our IT department. This position is based in our Reston, Virginia office.
One of the most innovative education companies, the organization is a mission-focused organization. This job requires a strong focus on improving educational opportunities and outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged students, in the context of a competitive business environment.

As a Cloud Architect, within the Technology Strategy group, you will plan, architect, implement and standardize various aspects of the organizations cloud solutions, in support of various product and service offerings. You will focus on forward looking technology innovation and strategy for organizations application and data architecture, as a core contributor of the organizations Cloud Transformation initiative. You will take ownership of conceptualizing, developing, standardizing and driving the adoption of various cloud-based application and data management patterns across the various product and application delivery teams. In this context, you would have to be prepared to take on various roles, hands on as well as supervisory.

The Cloud Architect will maintain awareness and knowledge of the emerging trends in technology, and its usage within the industry, and will apply this learning in the establishment of new and innovative technology strategies to support organizations business needs. The architect will also establish related practices, standards, and guidelines and will provide architectural oversight and adoption support to solution delivery teams. The Cloud Architect will provide consulting and advisory services to product and application teams, operations and engineering teams to ensure that technical solutions are aligned with the technology strategy and enterprise architecture direction. This involvement would span the entire spectrum of the development cycle for the solution delivery of IT initiatives, including determination of technical requirements, analysis, architecture and design, implementation and strategies for operational support.

Succeeding as a Cloud Architect will require in-depth technical knowledge, experience and skills, necessary when building solutions to support a single technology or line of business, as well as breadth of knowledge in multiple technology areas, necessary when building and integrating solutions across multiple technologies and lines of business, in an enterprise environment.
In addition, successful candidates will be innovative thinkers and passionate in their pursuit of world class technology enabled business solutions. They will also be strong leaders, skilled communicators, and active partners, adept in interpreting and understanding the needs of the enterprise while translating those needs into technology architectures and solutions that are enduring and of high quality.

A typical day in the Technology Strategy group involves working across the organization to set the stage for delivery of business solutions, incorporating cloud-based solutions integrated with current application needs and set the future vision for IT.

This is an opportunity for you to design and implement high-quality solutions that enable product and service delivery in support of the orgnizations mission, strategy, goals, and objectives. You’ll be surrounded by people who are like you; wickedly smart, passionate about the cloud, and know that the work that they are doing today supports the next generation of thought leaders and their future

About you
BS degree in Engineering, Computer Science or related field/equivalent experience
7+ years of experience developing, tuning and implementing large-scale, complex system architectures
Demonstrated professional competence in the principles and practices of Cloud architectures as they relate to:
o Familiarity with technologies and a demonstrated understanding of challenges posed by.
o Demonstrated experience in leading and mentoring technical staff in the development and usage of cloud technology architectures and solutions
o Working knowledge of and experience with other enterprise domains (application, security, infrastructure data, etc.)
o Experience working in Agile/Lean development environment (SCRUM preferred)
o Excellent software development habits (unit tests, in-code documentation, etc.)
o Scrum Team Member attitude willingness to support the Team to be successful in any area necessary
o Experience in architecting solutions using Amazon Web Services for cloud-scale, high availability, reliability and security
o Coding solutions that are composed of Amazon Web Services offerings
o Communication of Cloud concepts to peers and customers
o Migration from on-premise databases (ex: Oracle) to AWS Cloud
o Migration to a micro-service based architecture
o Design of mobile platforms
o Assessing the adequacy of technology controls and security measures
o Service Oriented Architecture
o Design of Continuous Delivery pipelines and the tools used to deliver solutions (SVN, GIT, Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Jenkins, Travis, Bamboo, Concourse, Salt, AWS Code Deploy, Docker, etc.)
Demonstrated experience translating business and technical requirements into comprehensive technical strategies and solutions.
Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain good customer working relationships.
Demonstrated ability to architect and model mission critical solutions leveraging multiple DBMS technologies (Relational, Big Data, NoSQL)
Working knowledge of Big Data technologies, HADOOP, NOSQL, Apache Kafka, Apache Spark
Working knowledge of networks, storage systems and computing platforms including WebLogic, Oracle, Linux, Unix, Windows.
Demonstrated ability to adequately plan and meet delivery objectives and maintain adequate service levels in a highly dynamic, complex environment.
Superior written and oral communication skills; ability to present ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language.
Excellent architecture and technical support documentation skills.
Ability to conduct research into emerging technologies and trends, standards, and products as required.
Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment;
Strong interpersonal skills
Strong consultative skills
Highly self-motivated and directed, with keen attention to detail.
Lifelong Learner what is learned today will be obsolete tomorrow; demonstrated continuous learning

More about you
Responsible – assume ownership of all aspects including delivering value via outcomes and continuous improvement
Methodical manages efforts with purpose and approach to ensure delivery of quality solutions
Disciplined manage work according to plan; variables are isolated and controlled
Innovative employ creativity to devise effective and efficient testing strategies
Demonstrated critical thinking – including abilities in analysis and problem-solving
Experienced in Systems Thinking breaks problems into manageable pieces, how the pieces interact, and when assembled, create an integrated, functioning, whole system.
Excellent verbal and written communication capabilities
Skilful at facilitation and negotiation
Effective team player with strong emotional intelligence self-awareness, confidence, ability to manage conflict, and empathy
Ability to effectively respond to questions and issues i.e., effective in communicating complex concepts to diverse audiences at all levels in the organization
Passion for technology, with an ability to understand and assess new technologies, and their potential applicability to business needs in an efficient, effective manner.

Benefits
The organization offers employees an outstanding benefits package which includes 4 weeks of paid time off, a generous retirement savings plan, tuition reimbursement and on-going professional development and training.

Details
Security Clearance Required: No
Visa Candidate Considered: No

COMPENSATION
Base Salary Competitive
Full-time Benefits – Full

CANDIDATE DETAILS
5+ to 7 years experience
Seniority Level – Mid-Senior
Management Experience Required – No
Minimum Education – Bachelor’s Degree
Willingness to Travel – Occasionally