Senior Solutions Architect

Arch Systems is seeking a highly technical and hands-on Senior Solutions Architect to design, modernize, and deliver secure technology solutions across our federal portfolio. The Senior Solutions Architect serves as a bridge between customer mission needs, architecture, and engineering delivery. This individual works directly with federal customers, program leadership, developers, DevSecOps engineers, cybersecurity teams, data engineers, and AI specialists to translate business and mission requirements into practical, secure, scalable solutions., This is a hands-on technical role. The Senior Solutions Architect is expected to design architectures, develop prototypes and reference implementations, evaluate technologies, troubleshoot complex technical issues, review implementations, and, when appropriate, contribute directly to software and infrastructure development., Solution Architecture & Engineering

• Design end-to-end solutions for complex federal systems and modernization initiatives.
• Develop solution architectures covering applications, APIs, integration, cloud, data, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, and AI.
• Create architecture diagrams, data flows, integration patterns, deployment architectures, sequence diagrams, technology standards, and implementation plans.
• Translate business, mission, security, and technical requirements into implementable solution designs.
• Define current-state and target-state architectures and practical transition approaches.
• Evaluate architectural alternatives and document technical tradeoffs and recommendations.
• Ensure architecture decisions are realistic, supportable, secure, and aligned with program delivery constraints.

Hands-On Technical Leadership

• Work directly with engineering teams to implement architectural solutions.
• Develop proofs of concept, prototypes, accelerators, and reference implementations.
• Write or review application code, APIs, scripts, infrastructure-as-code, configuration, and automation when needed.
• Conduct design and code reviews for critical components.
• Troubleshoot complex application, cloud, integration, data, security, and performance issues.
• Establish reusable engineering patterns and reference implementations.
• Help teams evaluate and adopt new technologies.
• Identify and address technical debt, scalability concerns, performance issues, and architectural risks., * Design cloud-native, hybrid-cloud, and modernization solutions using AWS, AWS GovCloud, Azure, and Azure Government.
• Design solutions using containers, Kubernetes, serverless technologies, managed cloud services, APIs, event-driven architectures, and microservices where appropriate.
• Assess legacy applications and recommend modernization strategies including rehosting, replatforming, refactoring, replacement, and retirement.
• Develop application migration and modernization plans that account for cost, risk, security, schedule, and mission continuity.

DevSecOps & Platform Engineering

• Design and improve CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps environments.
• Implement or guide infrastructure as code using technologies such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or comparable platforms.
• Support Docker, Kubernetes, and container-based application architectures.
• Integrate automated testing, static and dynamic security scanning, dependency scanning, secrets management, and software supply-chain controls into delivery pipelines.
• Design observability solutions covering logging, monitoring, metrics, tracing, alerting, and application performance.
• Promote reusable DevSecOps patterns across programs., * Design data architectures supporting transactional systems, analytics, reporting, AI, and machine learning.
• Develop integration approaches for APIs, databases, data lakes, data warehouses, streaming platforms, and external systems.
• Identify opportunities for AI, generative AI, automation, and intelligent decision support.
• Design secure enterprise AI solutions including RAG, LLM integration, AI agents, model APIs, vector databases, and AI-enabled applications.
• Work with data and AI teams on data readiness, model selection, security, governance, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Develop AI prototypes and demonstrations when appropriate.

Cybersecurity & Federal Compliance

• Incorporate security throughout architecture and engineering decisions.
• Apply Zero Trust principles including identity, device, network, application, workload, and data security.
• Design solutions incorporating IAM, RBAC/ABAC, encryption, secrets management, logging, auditing, and secure API patterns.
• Support federal security and compliance requirements including NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, RMF, Section 508, and agency-specific requirements.
• Work with cybersecurity teams to support ATO activities and security remediation.

Federal Program Delivery

• Serve as a senior technical leader on federal customer programs.
• Work directly with customer technical leadership, product owners, program managers, and engineering teams.
• Facilitate architecture and technical design sessions.
• Provide technical recommendations while considering program scope, budget, schedule, and contractual constraints.
• Identify technical risks early and develop practical mitigation strategies.
• Help engineering teams resolve difficult technical issues and delivery blockers.
• Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, technical reviews, demonstrations, and release planning when appropriate.

Architecture Governance & Standards

• Participate in Arch’s architecture review and technical governance processes.
• Help develop reusable reference architectures, engineering standards, patterns, templates, and accelerators.
• Ensure program architectures align with Arch engineering and security standards while accommodating customer-specific requirements.
• Document significant architecture decisions and technical tradeoffs.
• Share lessons learned and reusable solutions across programs.

Capture, Proposals & Growth

• Support federal capture and proposal activities as a technical solution architect.
• Analyze RFIs, RFPs, statements of work, and technical requirements.
• Develop solution architectures, technical approaches, modernization strategies, roadmaps, diagrams, and proposal graphics.
• Participate in solutioning sessions, color-team reviews, technical demonstrations, and oral presentations.
• Develop prototypes and demonstrations that differentiate Arch solutions.
• Assist with technical discovery and customer conversations.

Mentoring & Technical Community

• Mentor software engineers, DevSecOps engineers, cloud engineers, data engineers, and junior architects.
• Help engineers develop stronger architecture and system-design skills.
• Conduct technical workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions.
• Contribute reusable patterns, reference implementations, and lessons learned to Arch’s engineering community.
• Collaborate closely with the Chief Architect and engineering leadership to improve technical practices across Arch., A successful Senior Solutions Architect at Arch does more than create architecture diagrams.

They can design it, explain it, prototype it, help build it, and get it into production.

They are equally comfortable:

• Whiteboarding a solution with a federal customer.
• Designing a cloud architecture.
• Reviewing an API or data model.
• Opening an IDE and debugging a difficult problem with a developer.
• Building a prototype to validate an architectural decision.
• Reviewing a Terraform deployment or CI/CD pipeline.
• Helping a program address security or ATO issues.
• Designing an AI-enabled capability.
• Creating the technical solution for a federal proposal.
• Presenting that solution during an oral presentation.

The Senior Solutions Architect is ultimately responsible for helping ensure that the solution Arch proposes is the solution Arch can actually build and operate.

The ideal candidate combines strong architecture skills with enough engineering depth to help teams turn architecture into working software., * 10+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, cloud engineering, DevSecOps, data engineering, cybersecurity, AI, or related technology disciplines.

• 5+ years designing enterprise or large-scale solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to operate as a hands-on architect rather than solely producing architecture documentation.
• Strong software engineering background with experience in modern application development.
• Experience designing REST APIs, integrations, distributed systems, and modern application architectures.
• Experience with AWS and/or Azure cloud platforms.
• Experience with containers, Docker, Kubernetes, serverless technologies, or cloud-native architectures.
• Working knowledge of CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, security scanning, and observability.
• Experience designing secure enterprise systems.
• Understanding of relational and NoSQL databases, data integration, analytics, and modern data architectures.
• Working knowledge of AI/ML and generative AI technologies.
• Experience supporting federal civilian, defense, or national security customers.
• Understanding of federal cybersecurity and compliance requirements.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both senior customer stakeholders and engineering teams.
• Experience creating architecture diagrams, technical documentation, implementation plans, and technical presentations.
• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain or maintain a federal Public Trust or security clearance as required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AWS GovCloud and/or Azure Government.
• AWS or Azure professional-level architecture certification.
• Kubernetes, Terraform, DevSecOps, security, or AI/ML certifications.
• Experience with React, Angular, Python, Java, .NET, Node.js, or comparable modern development technologies.
• Experience with Terraform, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins, or similar DevSecOps technologies.
• Experience with PostgreSQL, SQL Server, DynamoDB, MongoDB, data lakes, or cloud-native data platforms.
• Experience with Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, SageMaker, Azure AI, or comparable AI platforms.
• Experience designing RAG applications, AI agents, vector-search solutions, or enterprise generative AI applications.
• Familiarity with Zero Trust, NIST 800-53, RMF, FISMA, FedRAMP, Section 508, and federal ATO processes.
• Experience supporting federal proposals, technical demonstrations, prototypes, and oral presentations.
• TOGAF or comparable architecture experience is beneficial but not required.