Sr. Platform Architect -- Washington, DC (Onsite)

Job Title: Sr. Platform Architect

Location: Washington, DC (Onsite)

Duration: 9 Months

Job Description

The Platform Architect is responsible for designing and evolving the enterprise-wide platform strategy, ensuring scalable, secure, and resilient infrastructure to support IT services and business applications. This role focuses on defining the technical architecture, automation frameworks, and governance models for Platform Engineering, ensuring a seamless integration of cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments.

The Platform Architect will lead infrastructure modernization, automation adoption, and the transition to a platform-as-a-product approach while collaborating with engineering, operations, security, and development teams.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Platform Architecture & Design

• Define and implement the technical vision for platform engineering, ensuring reliability, scalability, and security.
• Develop reference architectures for cloud, on-prem, and hybrid infrastructure.
• Establish standardized patterns for platform automation, infrastructure-as-code (IaC), and self-service provisioning.
• Lead the design of APIs and platform integrations to ensure seamless interoperability across tools and teams.

1. Automation & Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) Strategy

• Oversee the development and implementation of IaC frameworks using Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation.
• Define automation roadmaps for infrastructure provisioning, compliance enforcement, and operational workflows.
• Work with CI/CD engineers to streamline infrastructure automation and release processes.

1. Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure Strategy

• Develop a multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategy, ensuring cost efficiency, security, and performance optimization.
• Standardize networking, identity, and security models across cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform).
• Define best practices for container orchestration, Kubernetes management, and microservices deployment.

1. Observability, Performance, & Reliability Engineering

• Architect enterprise observability solutions using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, or Datadog.
• Establish site reliability engineering (SRE) best practices, including SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets.
• Develop proactive monitoring and self-healing automation frameworks.

1. Security, Compliance, & Governance

• Ensure platform security alignment with zero-trust models, access controls, and encryption standards.
• Define policies for automated security compliance and cloud governance.
• Collaborate with security architects to integrate DevSecOps principles into the platform.

1. Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Platform Engineering, Cloud, Security, and Development teams to implement scalable solutions.
• Drive a culture of automation-first engineering by mentoring engineers and advocating for DevOps and SRE best practices.
• Lead architecture reviews and technical governance meetings to ensure consistency across teams.

Required Qualifications & Skills:

Technical Skills

Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, VMware, Kubernetes

Automation & IaC: Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, CloudFormation

DevOps & CI/CD: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, ArgoCD

Observability & Performance: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk, Datadog

Security & Compliance: Zero Trust, IAM, SIEM, DevSecOps principles

Networking & APIs: API Gateways, Service Mesh (Istio, Consul), Load Balancing

Soft Skills

• Strategic Thinking Ability to align technical roadmaps with business objectives.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration Works closely with security, operations, and development teams.
• Mentorship & Thought Leadership Guides engineers on best practices for platform development.
• Strong Documentation & Communication Ensures architecture decisions are well-documented and clearly communicated.

Preferred Certifications

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• Google Professional Cloud Architect
• HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Architect
• Certified Kubernetes Architect (CKA)
• ServiceNow Certification and Experience

Thanks and Regards

Saikiran