Chief Platform Architect

ECS is seeking a Chief Platform Architect to work in our Colorado, CO office. Please Note: This position is contingent upon [contract award].

As a Platform Architect, you will be a senior technical leader responsible for designing and overseeing the implementation of our technology platform, ensuring scalability, reliability, and alignment with business and space mission goals. The ideal candidate should have a strong technical foundation in product ownership, software development, and cloud technologies to include Kubernetes, Istio, and Docker containers. You will lead and collaborate with cross-functional teams, providing guidance and mentorship to help guide technical decisions and platform strategy.

Responsibilities include:

• Develop and articulate the overall architecture and design of the technology platform, ensuring alignment with mission systems and customer objectives.
• Define and document platform components, interfaces, and dependencies.
• Design the platform to scale horizontally and vertically to meet current and future performance requirements.
• Design systems that meet rigorous requirements for availability, resiliency and performance.
• Establish hardware-based solutions and on-prem networking and access requirements for distributed workforce
• Implement strategies for load balancing, caching, and optimization to drive platform performance and resilience.
• Ensure the platform is designed for high availability, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery.
• Proactively implement monitoring, alerting, and automated recovery mechanisms.
• Design interfaces and APIs to enable seamless integration with internal and external systems.
• Collaborate with other architects and development teams to ensure interoperability.
• Implement and oversee security measures, including encryption, authentication, and authorization.
• Stay updated on security best practices and proactively address potential vulnerabilities.
• Evaluate and select appropriate technologies, frameworks, and tools for the platform.
• Stay informed about emerging technologies and assess their potential impact on the platform.
• Collaborate with software development teams to ensure that platform architecture is effectively implemented.
• Provide technical guidance and support to development teams.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for the platform architecture, design decisions, and guidelines.
• Provide training and knowledge transfer to development teams.
• Monitor platform performance and conduct performance tuning to optimize resource utilization.
• Implement best practices for database performance, caching, and data storage.
• Initiates, supervises, and/or develops requirements from a project's inception to conclusion for complex to extremely complex programs
• Provides strategic advice, technical guidance and expertise to program and project staff
• Provides detailed analysis, evaluation and recommendations for improvements, optimization development, and/or maintenance efforts for client-specific or mission critical challenges/issues
• Consults with client to define need or problem supervises studies and leads surveys to collect and analyze data to provide advice and recommend solutions.
• Manage enterprise requirements and priorities across a diverse range of users and mission spaces.
• Own the technical roadmap and provide strategic technical vision.
• Communicate the technical roadmap and strategic technical vision to internal and external stakeholders and teams.
• Leads and/or participates in discussions, meetings, conference, committees, or special IT projects as a senior technical advisor.
• Analyzes areas of concern, identifies problems, and resolves conflicts through persuasive discussions with management and user representatives.
• Propose, test, evaluate, and down select technical solutions to meet the technical roadmap and strategic technical vision.
• Conduct periodic, comprehensive architectural assessments and evaluations of capability-based goals/objectives.
• Conduct secure code reviews to ensure STIG compliance

Salary Range: $175,000-$235,000

General Description of Benefits

• Must be a US Citizen per contract.
• Must have an Active Top-Secret Clearance.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or similar experience.
• Proven experience as a Platform Architect or in a similar role.
• Change agent that inspires a project team to achieve solutions within the DoD.
• Strong proficiency in system architecture, design patterns, and software engineering principles.
• ‘Hands-on' architect – able to write code, stand-in for dev team members as needed; experienced practitioner.
• Experience with Azure cloud platform and working knowledge of other platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP).
• Proven experience designing scalable and high-performance platforms.
• In-depth understanding of security best practices and experience implementing security measures.
• Experience designing and implementing interfaces and APIs for seamless integration.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills to work effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Ability to balance conflicting and changing demands through prioritization and a pragmatic approach.