Application Modernization & Migration Architect

The Senior Application Modernization & Migration Engineer leads enterprise initiatives to transform legacy COBOL, PL/I, CICS, DB2, IMS, VSAM, and JCL-based applications to modern distributed or cloud-ready platforms -based mainframe applications into modern, cloud-native or cloud-enabled solutions using AI where applicable. This role combines expertise in legacy technologies, cloud engineering, AI-assisted software development, and automation to accelerate modernization while reducing risk, cost, and delivery timelines.

The role serves both strategic leadership and hands-on technical guidance throughout all phases of modernization , partnering with enterprise architects, engineering teams, cloud platform teams, mainframe application owners, DevSecOps, Testing teams, and business stakeholders to deliver end-to-end migration strategies that reduce technical debt, improve agility, and ensure business continuity.

Core Responsibilities

Modernization Strategy & Technical Leadership:

• Lead end-to-end application modernization and cloud migration initiatives.
• Assess legacy application portfolios, dependencies, and infrastructure to define target-state architectures.
• Leverage AI and automation to accelerate code analysis, dependency discovery, code transformation, documentation, testing, and migration activities.
• Define and drive migration strategies (e.g., rehost, replatform, refactor, rearchitect, replace).
• Design cloud-native and on-prem, cloud-ready solutions using microservices, APIs, event-driven architectures, containers, and serverless technologies.
• Build and implement automated CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and testing frameworks to support modernization efforts.
• Modernize batch processing, transaction processing, and data integration while ensuring business continuity and ensuring optimization of application performance.
• Collaborate with architects, developers, business stakeholders, and infrastructure teams to deliver modernization programs.
• Establish and align engineering standards, governance, and best practices for AI-enabled software development and cloud migration with customer-mandated architecture standards and governance guidelines.
• Mentor engineering teams and provide technical leadership throughout the modernization lifecycle.
• Develop comprehensive migration planning to include dependency mapping, cutover strategies, and rollback procedures

Application & Architecture Transformation:

• Analyze COBOL and other mainframe application-based applications, batch workloads, and business logic.
• Design modern architectures using cloud-native services, APIs, microservices, and event-driven patterns.
• Decompose monolithic systems into modular, scalable components.
• Identify and eliminate technical debt while improving maintainability and extensibility.
• Architect design to ensure application and system performance, including load testing, capacity planning, and optimization of user-response time for extremely large data sets.
• Lead technical assessments of: COBOL applications, PL/I applications, CICS transactions, Batch processing, JCL, DB2 databases, IMS databases, VSAM files, MQ messaging

Cloud Engineering & Platform Enablement:

• Support the design and implementation of secure, scalable cloud-based solutions.
• Collaborate with platform teams on infrastructure, networking, identity, security, and observability.
• Enable containerization, orchestration, and serverless architectures where appropriate.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code automation.
• Develop cloud-ready on-prem solutions that require minimal re-design utilizing cloud-compatible and cloud-agnostic architecture principles.

Data Modernization & Migration:

• Lead migration of legacy databases and file-based systems to modern data platforms.
• Ensure data integrity through validation, reconciliation, and quality controls.
• Develop automated data migration, transformation, and conversion processes.

Integration Modernization:

• Design APIs and integration layers to connect modern and legacy systems during transition phases.
• Transform batch processes into event-driven or service-based workflows.
• Support enterprise messaging and integration frameworks.

Quality Engineering & Validation:

• Define testing strategies across functional, integration, regression, performance, and UAT phases.
• Validate application behavior, performance, and stability post-migration.
• Troubleshoot and resolve migration-related defects and performance issues.

Governance, Risk & Documentation:

• Identify technical and operational risks and define mitigation strategies.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise architecture, security, and governance standards.
• Produce migration runbooks, architecture documentation, and operational procedures.

Salary Range: $240,000 - $260,000

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent experience.
• ship
• 15+ years of enterprise application development or engineering experience.
• 7+ years working with COBOL, other mainframe-based languages, and legacy enterprise systems.
• 5+ years leading large-scale application modernization or cloud migration programs.
• Proven experience delivering complex, enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.
• Technical leadership and architectural thinking
• Strategic planning and systems analysis
• Problem-solving in complex environments
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Executive-level communication
• Risk identification and mitigation
• Mentoring and team development

Desired Skills

• Experience modernizing applications in regulated industries such as financial services, government, healthcare, or insurance.
• Cloud certifications and experience with Kubernetes, Docker, Python, Java, or other modern programming languages.
• Knowledge of domain-driven design, API management, event streaming, observability, and enterprise integration patterns.

Everforth ECS is the federal segment of Everforth , a $4B global organization with over 10,000 employees. Our nearly 3,500 professionals deliver advanced technology solutions in data and AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise transformation, serving defense, intelligence, and federal civilian agencies.

Our work powers mission-critical outcomes, strengthens technology partnerships, and creates meaningful opportunities for our people. We are defined by a commitment to excellence in delivery, a culture of innovation, and an environment where talent can thrive and grow.