Principal Architect

About the role

Unissant, Inc. delivers innovative capabilities to the agencies that keep our nation healthy and safe. We apply our domain expertise, data acumen, and technology know-how to achieve breakthrough results for our clients. Working collaboratively, we advance missions and careers through a focus on honesty, integrity, and dependability.

We are seeking a Principal Architect to join our team and support our government client on a large, multi-year IT services program. The Principal Architect is accountable for the program's reference architecture, cross-team technical standards, architecture governance and decision-making, interoperability patterns, and evaluation of major technical trade-offs. This role will work closely with client technical stakeholders, program leadership, and delivery teams to ensure the program's cloud, security, data, analytics, AI-enabled services, and integration capabilities are secure, scalable, interoperable, and aligned to mission needs. The ideal candidate is a strategic, hands-on technology leader with demonstrated experience serving as a Principal, Chief, or Enterprise Architect on a large-scale federal IT services program. They bring deep technical expertise in cloud-native architecture, security, identity and access management, APIs, large-scale data platforms, and DevSecOps.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Own, maintain, and evolve the program's reference architecture, ensuring alignment across cloud and security, data platforms, analytics, AI-enabled services, integrations, and APIs.
• Establish, document, communicate, and govern cross-team technical standards, architectural patterns, and engineering practices to promote consistency, interoperability, security, scalability, and maintainability.
• Lead architecture governance processes, including architecture review boards, technical design reviews, decision-making forums, and approval processes for significant technical and architecture decisions.
• Define interoperability patterns for data exchange, service integration, API design, event-driven solutions, external systems, and platform extensibility.
• Conduct, facilitate, and document major technical trade-off analyses to inform architecture, platform, infrastructure, security, and technology decisions.
• Evaluate architecture alternatives based on security, scalability, performance, availability, cost, maintainability, delivery risk, operational impact, and mission alignment.
• Partner with client technical stakeholders, program leadership, product leadership, and technical leads to ensure the architecture meets performance, security, privacy, availability, scalability, operational readiness, and mission requirements.
• Develop, maintain, and manage architecture-related artifacts, including reference architectures, solution architecture diagrams, technical standards, architecture decision records, integration diagrams, data-flow diagrams, and technical roadmaps.
• Ensure architecture documentation supports client oversight, audit requirements, program transition, institutional knowledge retention, and reuse.
• Collaborate with engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, data, analytics, AI/ML, product, and agile delivery teams to ensure approved architectural decisions are implemented consistently.
• Provide technical leadership and escalation support for complex cross-team architecture issues, technical dependencies, design conflicts, and integration challenges.
• Resolve architecture conflicts and provide recommendations that balance program requirements, technical feasibility, delivery schedules, risk, cost, and sustainability.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, architecture approaches, and platform capabilities to identify opportunities to improve mission outcomes, delivery speed, security posture, reliability, cost efficiency, and program sustainability.
• Support the development and refinement of technical roadmaps, modernization strategies, target-state architectures, and transition plans.
• Communicate architectural decisions, technical risks, solution alternatives, and recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, including government client leadership.

Work Experience And Job Skills

• Demonstrated experience serving as a Principal Architect, Chief Architect, Enterprise Architect, or comparable senior technical architecture leader on a federal IT services program supporting 80 or more FTEs.
• Deep expertise in cloud-native architecture, including secure cloud foundation design, cloud network and security patterns, identity and access management, API architecture, and platform integration.
• Experience architecting large-scale data platforms, including data ingestion, transformation, storage, cataloging, metadata management, data quality, data governance, and secure data-sharing patterns.
• Experience establishing and operating architecture governance frameworks across multiple work streams, delivery teams, vendors, or stakeholder organizations.
• Experience leading architecture review boards, technical design reviews, standards-setting activities, and complex technical decision-making bodies.
• Strong understanding of interoperability and integration patterns, including APIs, service-oriented architecture, event-driven architecture, data exchange, external system integration, and platform extensibility.
• Working knowledge of DevSecOps principles and practices, including CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, automated testing, security automation, deployment controls, monitoring, logging, and operational readiness.
• Experience conducting and documenting major technical trade-off analyses involving architecture alternatives, security considerations, scalability, performance, cost, delivery risk, maintainability, and operational impact.
• Ability to develop and maintain clear, concise, and actionable architecture documentation for technical delivery teams, client stakeholders, auditors, and transition personnel.
• Experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams, including cloud engineers, software engineers, cybersecurity professionals, data engineers, data scientists, product owners, scrum teams, and program management personnel.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, conflict-resolution, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to work independently in a remote environment while effectively coordinating decisions and activities across distributed teams.
• Prior experience supporting government client programs in a comparable mission or technical domain is preferred.
• Experience architecting AI/ML platforms and services, including model serving, retrieval-augmented generation, vector search, AI orchestration, and data pipelines supporting AI workloads, is preferred.
• Experience designing architectures for federated, multi-tenant, multi-team, or multi-system operating models is preferred.
• Experience with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, or multiple major cloud service providers is preferred.
• Experience supporting federal modernization, cloud migration, enterprise data, digital services, cybersecurity, systems integration, or large-scale technology transformation programs is preferred.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree is required.
• Preferred fields of study include Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Engineering, Operations Management, or a related technical field.
• MBA or Master's Degree in a relevant field of study is preferred.
• Equivalent combinations of education, certifications, and relevant professional experience may be considered, where permitted by contract requirements.

Certificates, Licenses and Registrations

• Relevant architecture certifications are preferred.
• Preferred certifications include TOGAF, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect, SAFe Architect, or comparable cloud, DevSecOps, security, data architecture, and enterprise architecture credentials.

Communication Skills

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to present architecture recommendations, technical standards, technical trade-off analyses, risks, roadmaps, and performance information to stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to executive leadership, government clients, program management, delivery teams, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to write clear, concise, and well-organized architecture documentation, technical standards, decision records, diagrams, and related content in a highly confidential manner.

Clearance Requirements

• U.S. citizenship or eligibility to obtain a government PIV credential is required.
• Ability to successfully complete a federal background investigation and receive a federal suitability determination is required.
• Ability to obtain and maintain required client access credentials and any applicable clearance is required.
• Ability to satisfy E-Verify employment eligibility verification requirements is required.

Travel

• This position is primarily remote.
• The client may direct or approve occasional in-person participation for planning, transition, training, meetings, workshops, or other program events.
• All reimbursable travel outside the local commuting area requires advance approval.

Environmental Requirements

• Mainly a routine office environment.
• May be required to lift up to ten (10) pounds.
• Must be flexible in working extended hours when required to support program priorities, critical delivery milestones, and client needs.