Affinity

4533 Solutions Architect

Affinity$130K — $155K *
Aerospace & Defense
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience designing complex system architectures in regulated environments.
  • Experience transforming ambiguous operational problems into coherent technical solutions.
  • Proficiency in creating systems across multiple applications, platforms, and networks.
  • Ability to develop actionable technical requirements and architecture documentation for engineers.
  • Experience working collaboratively with diverse teams across architecture, engineering, and cybersecurity.
  • Track record of making and justifying architecture trade-offs based on real-world constraints.
  • Strong communication skills to engage both technical teams and executive stakeholders.

Responsibilities

  • Assess current network systems and operational constraints to inform architecture design.
  • Translate mission requirements into structured current-state and future-state architectures.
  • Develop different architectural models including conceptual, logical, and deployment architectures.
  • Break down complex mission needs into executable technical work and requirements.
  • Evaluate architectural options and provide readiness recommendations based on various key metrics.
  • Create modernization roadmaps that align long-term goals with achievable short-term outcomes.
  • Support integration and testing processes to ensure requirements are viable for implementation.

Benefits

  • Collaborative work environment with multidisciplinary teams.
  • Opportunity to influence critical architecture decisions in national security contexts.
  • Engagement with cutting-edge technologies and solutions.
  • Direct involvement in impactful government projects and missions.
  • Professional development opportunities within a highly regulated industry.
Full Job Description
4533 Solutions Architect
4533 | TS/SCI

Job Description:

OVERVIEW:

We are seeking a Solutions Architect to work in complex and restricted mission environments. You will evaluate existing systems and mission requirements to create organized architectural structures. Your role involves leading government and engineering stakeholders through the process of designing and deploying functional technology.

You will work with government clients, operators, program leaders, engineers, security teams, vendors, and company teams. Your role is to turn complex mission requirements into system architectures that are secure, scalable, and ready to be built.

You will work directly on architectural tasks rather than observing from the sidelines. Your responsibilities include assessing current systems and constraints, defining future architectures, and developing technical requirements and integration strategies. You will evaluate tradeoffs and support teams throughout the process from initial concepts to final implementation.

Effective architecture is defined by its performance in a real environment rather than its theoretical elegance. You must design solutions that account for existing legacy systems, security requirements, and established acquisition processes. Your design should also consider organizational ownership, long-term sustainment, and the specific capacity of the government to deploy and manage the final capability.

GENERAL DUTIES:

Architect Mission-Critical Systems

  • Assess existing network systems, infrastructure, interfaces, dependencies, technical debt, security boundaries, and operational constraints.
  • Translate mission needs and operational concepts into clear current-state and future-state architectures.
  • Develop conceptual, logical, physical, integration, and deployment architectures appropriate to the problem.
  • Decompose complex mission needs into capabilities, system components, services, interfaces, requirements, and executable technical work.
  • Evaluate architectural alternatives and make decision-ready recommendations across performance, resiliency, interoperability, security, scalability, cost, and schedule.
  • Create modernization roadmaps that connect long-term architectural direction with practical near-term delivery.

Turn Architecture Into Something Teams Can Build

  • Develop clear, testable technical and non-functional requirements from operational needs and mission outcomes.
  • Define system boundaries, interfaces, integration patterns, data flows, APIs, services, and external dependencies.
  • Maintain traceability between mission needs, requirements, architecture decisions, implementation activities, and verification objectives.
  • Identify technical risks, assumptions, constraints, and dependencies early enough to do something about them.
  • Support integration, test, verification, validation, and operational acceptance by ensuring architecture and requirements are implementation-ready.

Design for the Real Environment

  • Develop integration strategies spanning legacy systems, modern applications, cloud and edge environments, networks, data platforms, and commercial technologies.
  • Incorporate cybersecurity, identity and access management, data protection, network segmentation, resiliency, and classified-environment constraints from the beginning.
  • Design for implementation rather than architectural purity, accounting for authorization, acquisition, licensing, portability, sustainment, government ownership, and operational realities.
  • Help transition prototypes and commercial technologies into government-owned and operated environments without creating avoidable long-term dependencies.
  • Evaluate AI-enabled architectures, including secure integration of models and agents with enterprise systems, data sources, APIs, tools, and mission workflows.

Lead Through Ambiguity

  • Serve as a trusted technical advisor to government leaders, operators, program offices, engineers, and Dcode teams.
  • Facilitate architecture working groups, requirements workshops, technical reviews, design sessions, and engineering trade studies.
  • Lead technical workstreams across multidisciplinary teams and organizational boundaries.
  • Translate complex technical decisions into clear architecture views, roadmaps, executive briefings, and decision papers.
  • Challenge assumptions constructively and drive stakeholders toward decisions when requirements, ownership, interfaces, or constraints are unclear.
  • Help Dcode develop repeatable architecture, requirements, and integration practices that can scale across engagements.


REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

  • You have extensive experience with the design and implementation of complex system architectures. This work was performed within government, national security, or other mission environments that are highly regulated.
  • Taken ambiguous operational or business problems and turned them into coherent technical architectures.
  • Designed systems involving multiple applications, platforms, networks, data sources, interfaces, or infrastructure environments.
  • Developed technical requirements and architecture artifacts that engineers could actually implement.
  • Worked across architecture, engineering, cybersecurity, infrastructure, software, data, and operational teams.
  • Made and defended difficult architecture tradeoffs rather than simply documenting ideal-state designs.
  • Led technical efforts involving multiple stakeholders, organizations, vendors, or engineering disciplines.
  • Communicated effectively with both deeply technical teams and senior decision-makers.
  • Worked successfully in environments where security, compliance, legacy technology, organizational boundaries, and operational constraints materially affect the solution.


DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

  • National security systems: Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, command and control, communications, networking, or other classified mission environments.
  • Systems engineering and architecture: DoDAF, MBSE/SysML, digital engineering, operational and system views, interface control documents, requirements traceability, or similar practices.
  • Modern infrastructure: Cloud-native and hybrid architectures, edge computing, APIs, microservices, Zero Trust, identity and access management, DevSecOps, or data platforms.
  • AI-enabled systems: LLMs, agents, RAG, AI orchestration, MCP or similar interoperability patterns, and secure integration of AI capabilities with enterprise systems.
  • Technology transition: Evaluating and integrating commercial or emerging technologies, prototypes, pilots, and rapid acquisition efforts into operational government environments.
  • Certifications like INCOSE, TOGAF, AWS/Azure, CISSP, SAFe, and PMP are helpful, but we value proven skills over simply having credentials.


CLEARANCE:

  • Active TS/SCI clearance minimum required


Job Details

City : Washington

State : DC

About Affinity

Affinity’s patented technology structures and analyzes millions of data points across emails, calendars, and third-party sources to offer users the tools they need to automatically manage their most valuable relationships, prioritize important connections, and discover untapped opportunities. Affinity uses artificial intelligence to analyze relationship strength and illuminate the best paths to warm introductions. The platform also offers a holistic view of users’ networks in a centralized, automatically updated database without any manual upkeep. Founded in 2014, Affinity is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Affinity has raised $120M to date and is backed by leading investors including Menlo Ventures, Advance Venture Partners, 8VC and MassMutual Ventures. It has over 2,700 customers in 70 countries, including venture capital firms such as Bain Capital Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, private equity firms such as SoftBank Group, investment bankers such as Woodside Capital Partners, financial services firms such as Fidelity Investments, real estate companies such as Tishman Speyer, insurers such as American Family Insurance and enterprises such as Nike, Qualcomm and Twilio. Affinity has been named in Fortune Magazine's Best Workplaces, Inc. Magazine's Best Workplaces and editor's number one pick, the Data Breakthrough Award, BIG Innovation Award and others.
Learn more about Affinity
Size
1,000 employees
Industry
Founded
2014

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