What are we looking for?

At AIS, we are dedicated to providing our employees with diverse opportunities to grow their careers while supporting a variety of impactful projects. For this position, we are seeking a talented individual to join AIS as a Infrastructure Architect.

• Core Knowledge & Skills: Architects scalable, resilient solutions; authors roadmaps and blueprints; integrates diverse components; advances automation (PowerShell/Python/Ansible) and governance/policy.
• Work & Complexity: Leads architectural initiatives, establishes performance benchmarks, integrates systems at scale, researches emerging tech, and mitigates enterprise risk.
• Quality & Independence: Ensures integrity, scalability, and cost/performance optimization; produces comprehensive design artifacts; sets and enforces standards with broad autonomy.
• Teamwork & Communication: Leads architectural teams, builds strategic partnerships, institutionalizes knowledge management, and communicates designs and executive-ready reports.
• Consulting & Engagement: Delivers architectural consulting aligned to business strategy, proposes enterprise technologies, nurtures vendor alliances, and seeds new project opportunities.

As your initial project assignment, you will support the unique needs of our client as a Azure Solution Architect - Industrial IoT.

Position Summary
We are seeking an experienced Azure Solution Architect - Industrial IoT to lead the design and deployment of secure, scalable, and reliable Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions in Microsoft Azure. This role is responsible for translating operational technology (OT) and business requirements into end-to-end cloud and edge architectures that enable industrial connectivity, telemetry ingestion, device management, analytics, and operational insights. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Azure services, industrial protocols, edge computing, cybersecurity, and systems integration across manufacturing, utilities, energy, or other industrial environments. This position is located on-site in Groton, CT.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, and technical governance of Azure-based industrial IoT and edge solutions.

• Define end-to-end IIoT reference architectures spanning sensors, PLCs, SCADA/DCS systems, industrial gateways, edge compute, cloud ingestion, storage, analytics, and visualization.

• Design solutions using Azure services such as Azure IoT Operations, Azure IoT Hub, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Data Explorer, Azure Functions, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Arc, Azure Monitor, Microsoft Defender for IoT, and Azure Digital Twins as appropriate.

• Architect secure and resilient connectivity patterns between plant-floor assets and Azure, including edge-to-cloud messaging, store-and-forward, intermittent connectivity handling, and remote site deployment models.

• Develop strategies for ingesting and normalizing data from industrial protocols and systems such as OPC UA, Modbus, MQTT, BACnet, DNP3, and proprietary OEM interfaces.

• Collaborate with OT engineers, plant operations, cybersecurity teams, infrastructure teams, and software developers to ensure solutions align with operational requirements and safety constraints.

• Define device onboarding, identity, certificate management, lifecycle management, patching, and remote operations models for field and plant devices.

• Design data architectures that support real-time monitoring, historian integration, predictive maintenance, condition monitoring, asset performance management, and advanced analytics use cases.

• Ensure architectures incorporate security-by-design principles, including zero trust, network segmentation, role-based access control, secrets management, device hardening, and regulatory compliance.

• Produce architecture artifacts including solution diagrams, interface definitions, security models, deployment patterns, migration plans, and implementation roadmaps.

• Provide technical leadership during pilots, proof-of-concepts, and production deployments, including design reviews, troubleshooting, and performance optimization.

• Establish non-functional requirements for availability, scalability, latency, resiliency, observability, and disaster recovery.

• Support cost modeling, environment sizing, and cloud consumption planning for IIoT workloads.

• Mentor engineering teams and provide architectural oversight across implementation and operational handoff.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 8+ years of experience in solution architecture, cloud engineering, or enterprise systems integration.

• 3+ years of experience designing or deploying industrial IoT / OT-integrated solutions in manufacturing, energy, utilities, transportation, mining, or similar industrial sectors.

• Strong hands-on knowledge of Microsoft Azure architecture and services relevant to IoT, data, integration, security, and hybrid infrastructure.

• Experience integrating cloud platforms with industrial environments, including PLCs, SCADA, MES, historians, industrial gateways, or plant-floor networks.

• Understanding of industrial communications standards and protocols such as OPC UA, MQTT, and Modbus.

• Experience with edge computing platforms, containerized workloads, and remote site deployment patterns.

• Knowledge of OT and IoT cybersecurity principles, including asset visibility, network boundaries, device identity, certificate-based authentication, secure remote access, and threat monitoring.

• Experience with infrastructure as code and automation using tools such as Bicep, ARM, Terraform, PowerShell, or Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions.

• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage both executive stakeholders and deeply technical engineering teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Microsoft Azure certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Administrator, Azure Security Engineer, or IoT-related certifications.

• Experience with Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, industrial edge gateways, or disconnected/low-connectivity operating environments.

• Experience with historian platforms, time-series analytics, and digital twin modeling.

• Familiarity with industrial cybersecurity standards and frameworks such as ISA/IEC 62443, NIST CSF, NERC CIP, or sector-specific controls.

• Experience designing solutions for regulated or high-assurance environments.

• Knowledge of data engineering and visualization platforms such as Power BI, Synapse, Fabric, or third-party industrial analytics tools.

• Background in application integration, API design, event-driven architectures, and enterprise integration patterns.

At AIS, we are committed to offering competitive and fair compensation that reflects the skills, experience, and contributions of each team member.The targeted base salary range for this role is $138,000-$209,000 per year. Please note that this range is provided as a guideline and the final offer will be based on several factors, including but not limited to, skillset and competencies, level of experience, education, certifications, and location.We value transparency in our hiring process and are happy to discuss how your unique qualifications align with our compensation structure during the interview process.