Systems Architect

About the role

You will lead the technical architecture, modernization, and continuous improvement of the Grants.gov platform and related solutions supporting federal grant-making operations. You will collaborate with federal stakeholders, product teams, engineers, security specialists, and operations personnel to design scalable, secure, and highly available solutions that support mission-critical services for millions of users across the federal grants ecosystem.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and maintenance of enterprise, solution, application, integration, and platform architectures supporting Grants.gov and related services.
• Design scalable, highly available, secure, and resilient application and infrastructure solutions that support continuous operations and disaster recovery requirements.
• Define architecture roadmaps, modernization strategies, and technical recommendations that improve system performance, availability, maintainability, and cost efficiency.
• Collaborate with development, operations, security, and cloud teams to ensure architectural alignment across platforms, applications, databases, integrations, and hosting environments.
• Evaluate and recommend emerging technologies, automation capabilities, cloud services, AI-enabled solutions, and operational improvements.
• Provide technical oversight for system-to-system integrations, APIs, data exchanges, forms processing, and application workflows.
• Support architecture governance processes, solution reviews, technical documentation, and compliance with federal architecture standards and HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC) requirements.
• Support cybersecurity and privacy initiatives, including Authority to Operate (ATO) activities, security documentation, POA&M management, incident response, and compliance requirements.
• Present technical concepts, architecture recommendations, alternatives, and modernization plans to executive, business, and technical stakeholders.
• Develop architecture artifacts, technical management plans, system documentation, and executive-ready presentations that support operational and strategic decision-making.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree.
• Eight to Ten years of experience designing, developing, and supporting enterprise-scale application architectures.
• Experience architecting cloud-hosted solutions, preferably within AWS environments.
• Experience with enterprise application integration, APIs, web services, and service-oriented or microservices architectures.
• Experience designing highly available, secure, and scalable systems supporting public-facing applications.
• Knowledge of application lifecycle management, DevSecOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, configuration management, and release management.
• Experience supporting federal IT systems and compliance frameworks.
• Strong understanding of: Application architecture and design patterns, Database architecture and performance optimization, Security architecture and risk management, Disaster recovery and business continuity planning, Performance and capacity management, Identity and access management.
• Experience developing technical documentation, architecture diagrams, operational procedures, and executive briefings.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Federal or DoD "PUBLIC TRUST"; candidates must obtain approved adjudication of their PUBLIC TRUST prior to onboarding with Guidehouse.

Qualifications

• Additional four (4) years of experience needed in lieu of a degree.
• Experience supporting federal grants management systems, shared service platforms, or large public-facing government applications.
• Experience with Grants.gov.
• Knowledge of HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC), federal IT governance, ATO processes, security assessment activities, and compliance-driven delivery environments.
• Experience with Grants.gov-like capabilities, including public-facing web applications, applicant submissions, grantor user management, S2S integrations, forms processing, chatbot support, helpdesk escalations, or system status communications.
• Experience supporting cloud-hosted applications, AWS environments, application platform security, certificate management, account management, logging, monitoring, backup validation, or disaster recovery planning.
• Experience supporting modernization, consolidation, transition-in, or multi-vendor integration initiatives involving multiple applications and stakeholder organizations.
• Relevant certifications or credentials such as: AWS Solutions Architect Professional, TOGAF, CISSP, Certified Federal Enterprise Architect (CFEA), SAFe Architect, or equivalent Agile architecture certification.

Skills

• Experience with Grants.gov.
• Knowledge of HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC).
• Experience with Grants.gov-like capabilities.
• Experience supporting cloud-hosted applications.
• Experience with AWS environments.
• Experience with modernization, consolidation, transition-in, or multi-vendor integration initiatives.
• Relevant certifications or credentials such as: AWS Solutions Architect Professional, TOGAF, CISSP, Certified Federal Enterprise Architect (CFEA), SAFe Architect, or equivalent Agile architecture certification.

Benefits

The annual salary range for this position is $130,000.00-$216,000.00. Compensation decisions depend on a wide range of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, security clearances, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs.

Pay

The annual salary range for this position is $130,000.00-$216,000.00. Compensation decisions depend on a wide range of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, security clearances, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs.

Schedule

Travel Required Up to 10%

Clearance Required

Ability to Obtain Public Trust

What Would Be Nice to Have

• Experience supporting federal grants management systems, shared service platforms, or large public-facing government applications.
• Experience with Grants.gov.
• Knowledge of HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC).
• Experience with Grants.gov-like capabilities.
• Experience supporting cloud-hosted applications.
• Experience with AWS environments.
• Experience with modernization, consolidation, transition-in, or multi-vendor integration initiatives.
• Relevant certifications or credentials such as: AWS Solutions Architect Professional, TOGAF, CISSP, Certified Federal Enterprise Architect (CFEA), SAFe Architect, or equivalent Agile architecture certification.

What We Offer

• Comprehensive, total rewards package that includes competitive compensation and a flexible benefits package.
• Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance.
• Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays.
• Parental Leave.
• 401(k) Retirement Plan.
• Group Term Life and Travel Assistance.
• Voluntary Life and AD&D Insurance.
• Health Savings Account, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts.
• Transit and Parking Commuter Benefits.
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability.
• Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development, Certifications & Learning Opportunities.
• Employee Referral Program.
• Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach.
• Care.com annual membership.
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Supplemental Benefits via Corestream (Critical Care, Hospital Indemnity, Accident Insurance, Legal Assistance and ID theft protection, etc.).

About Guidehouse

Guidehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer–Protected Veterans, Individuals with Disabilities or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation. Guidehouse will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law or ordinance including the Fair Chance Ordinance of Los Angeles and San Francisco. If you have visited our website for information about employment opportunities, or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Guidehouse Recruiting at 1-571-633-1711 or via email at RecruitingAccommodation@guidehouse.com. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodation. All communication regarding recruitment for a Guidehouse position will be sent from Guidehouse email domains including @guidehouse.com or guidehouse@myworkday.com. Correspondence received by an applicant from any other domain should be considered unauthorized and will not be honored by Guidehouse. Note that Guidehouse will never charge a fee or require a money transfer at any stage of the recruitment process and does not collect fees from educational institutions for participation in a recruitment event. Never provide your banking information to a third party purporting to need that information to proceed in the hiring process. If any person or organization demands money related to a job opportunity with Guidehouse, please report the matter to Guidehouse’s Ethics Hotline. If you want to check the validity of correspondence you have received, please contact recruiting@guidehouse.com. Guidehouse is not responsible for losses incurred (monetary or otherwise) from an applicant’s dealings with unauthorized third parties. Guidehouse does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Guidehouse and Guidehouse will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.