Principal Architect

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 continuously look for talent excited to join that effort. To learn more about our exciting organization, please visit us at www.unissant.com.

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.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the individual(s) assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required. Unissant management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties and to assign other duties as necessary. In addition, where applicable and available, reasonable accommodation(s) may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions of this position.

Please note: Candidate(s) will be required to go through pre-employment screening.

Unissant, Inc. is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer! (EOE; M/F/Disability/Vets)