Cloud Solutions Architect

About the role

Allied Consultants, Inc is a proudly Austin based firm with over 34 years of experience delivering top-tier technical and business professionals within Texas State Agencies. We are currently seeking an experienced Cloud Solutions Architect to play a key role within a high-impact technical services team. At Allied Consultants, we value our consultants and are committed to providing an exceptional experience including highly competitive pay rates, local support staff for responsive, personal service, comprehensive benefits package, and flexible spending through a cafeteria plan.

Responsibilities

• Lead DCO Service Delivery strategic efforts supporting both project delivery and steady-state operations; develop architectural blueprints, network topologies, and technical specifications that align business requirements with appropriate cloud services
• Serve as a lead cloud engineer responsible for defining, guiding, and delivering technology initiatives and projects that address specific business needs
• Perform advanced, senior-level computer systems analysis work, including hands-on planning, assessment of user requirements, review of procedures, and identification of system improvements; work includes automating processes and enhancing existing systems, particularly those involving the transition from on-premises environments to public, private, or hybrid cloud platforms
• Plan and schedule studies and system implementations and provide technical and business process guidance to support effective delivery
• Drive and lead cross-functional initiatives involving agency systems, IT groups, and other state entities, requiring coordination, planning, and scheduling throughout project development and implementation
• Evaluate and present architectural options to support the selection and implementation of effective technology solutions
• Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and integration pipelines to streamline deployments, improve consistency, and efficiently scale resources
• Design and implement new or revised methods that effectively meet agency needs
• Ensure solution designs comply with applicable data security requirements for each category of data contained within the solution; establish and enforce robust security measures, manage identity and access controls, and ensure systems align with applicable industry regulations, including HIPAA, as well as client best practices
• Design, develop and administer highly scalable systems with core capabilities across cloud-based provider services, including reporting and full system integration
• Lead and participate in solution implementation to include coordinating and solving problems, analyzing systems and procedures, developing or revising existing code; scheduling, testing, installing, and implementing systems; writing or revising standards and procedures
• Articulate the current state and desired state of technical solutions, identify gaps between the two states, and develop approaches to close any gaps; collaborate with client IT groups on recommendations
• Assist in the preparation of information technology planning and justification
• Oversee the process of developing training for staff prior to implementation of a new technology or data analytics platform; may also conduct the training of technical staff and program staff on the use of the new tools, technologies, or application
• Perform other duties as assigned

Qualifications

Required (7 years of experience):

• Knowledge, experience and understanding of the limitations and capabilities of computer systems, information technology equipment, applicable programming languages, computer hardware and software, and computer operating systems
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of new cloud technologies and the analytical services available from the major cloud services providers
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of cloud delivery models: PaaS, SaaS, IaaS
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of agile (scrum) methodology and scrum ceremonies
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of cloud-based services for AWS, Microsoft Azure or GCP
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of cloud-based network design principles
• Strong knowledge in data governance, security, and compliance in cloud environments
• Strong technical writing and diagraming skills, including proficiency with modeling and mapping tools (e.g., Visio), the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and MS Project
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with experience as a technology architect for software development, data analytics, performance management system, or data warehousing project
• Skill analyzing technology systems capabilities, limitations, defects, and business problems to draw evidence-based conclusions and devise innovative solutions
• Experience and understanding of cloud computing DevOps principles Continuous Integration/Continuous Design (CI/CD); experience with Containerization, deploying and configuring microservices; Kubernetes architecture deployment, scaling, and maintenance
• Support application Kubernetes cluster and serverless infrastructure, help address any associated APIs pertaining to cloud infrastructure services and integrations
• Work on cloud automation using Ansible, Terraform, AWS cloud formation and Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
• Experience and understanding with cloud and performance monitoring, auditing logging, and operations tools such as: Sysdig Secure (CNAPP), Dynatrace, Cloud native tool sets (AWS CloudWatch, GCP Cloud Operations, Azure Monitor, OCI Monitoring, etc.)
• Proficient automation skillset using a combination of command language scripting (Bash, Korn, PowerShell, Cloud CLI, Kubernetes Helm) and third-party tools
• Knowledge, experience and understanding with declarative and imperative languages (YAML, JSON, Ruby, HCL, etc.) and tools that are leveraged (Ansible, Docker, Terraform, etc.) to leverage infrastructure-as-code (IaC)
• Ability to work under pressure and successfully manage multiple overlapping deadlines, and able to handle multiple cross-agency projects
• Ability to coordinate multiple assignments/projects, set priorities, and meet deadlines
• Ability to lead and provide direction to team members
• Ability to lead the creation of best practices and procedures

Preferred (8+ years of experience):

• Knowledge, experience and understanding of the limitations and capabilities of computer systems, information technology equipment, applicable programming languages, computer hardware and software, and computer operating systems
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of new cloud technologies and the analytical services available from the major cloud services providers
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of cloud delivery models: PaaS, SaaS, IaaS
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of cloud-based services for AWS, Microsoft Azure or GCP
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of cloud-based network design principles
• Experience and understanding of cloud computing DevOps principles Continuous Integration/Continuous Design (CI/CD); experience with Containerization, deploying and configuring microservices; Kubernetes architecture deployment, scaling, and maintenance
• Knowledge, experience and understanding with declarative and imperative languages (YAML, JSON, Ruby, HCL, etc.) and tools that are leveraged (Ansible, Docker, Terraform, etc.) to leverage infrastructure-as-code (IaC)
• Knowledge and/or hands-on experience with cloud database services (Rational/NoSQL and SQL/Oracle) data lakes and cloud ETL/ELT best practices, suitable frameworks of handling all types of data for structured and unstructured information
• 8+ years of experience architecting, engineering, or developing enterprise IT solutions in cloud and hybrid environments
• Knowledge of AI services and configuration required to set up the service available from major cloud services providers
• Knowledge of data pipelines, ETL processes, and big data frameworks

Benefits

• Highly competitive pay rates
• Local support staff for responsive, personal service
• Medical insurance (with employer cost sharing)
• Life insurance
• A 401(K) plan with company match
• Flexible spending through a cafeteria plan