The Role - Overview Brookhaven National Laboratory is seeking a multidisciplinary technical leader to serve as the Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) Principal Architect within the Information Technology Division (ITD). Reporting to the ITD I&O department manager, this individual contributor provides technical leadership for the infrastructure and services that enable the Laboratory's operations and scientific mission. The Principal Architect establishes standards and roadmaps, guides complex cross-functional initiatives, and advises IT and Laboratory leaders on architecture, risk, and technology investments.
The role spans networks, compute, storage, cloud, identity, endpoint platforms, monitoring, and service resilience in a hybrid on-premises and cloud environment. Drawing on hands-on experience operating production services, the Principal Architect helps shape strategic roadmaps, advances infrastructure-as-code practices, and raises engineering maturity across teams. As a member of the ITD Architect Council, the architect also helps set technical direction for major IT investments and standards.
The Principal Architect supports the Laboratory's evolving AI initiatives by partnering with application, data, and AI teams to deliver secure, scalable, and reusable platform capabilities for traditional and AI-driven workloads. Success requires a collaborative problem-solver who can mentor architects and senior engineers, challenge existing approaches, and lead the transformation of the Laboratory's infrastructure platforms over the next several years.
Success in this role requires someone who enjoys solving complex technical problems, mentoring architects and senior engineers, challenging existing approaches, and building platforms that enable others to be successful.
We are looking for someone who wants to help transform where our current platforms go over the next several years, not simply maintain where they are today.Essential Duties and Responsibilities - Develop and maintain infrastructure architectures, technical standards, reference designs, and multiyear roadmaps and serve on the ITD Architect Council.
- Lead architectural planning for initiatives spanning multiple platforms, vendors, teams, or customer groups, addressing dependencies, integration, operational risks, and long-term support.
- Evaluate current and emerging technologies for technical fit, cost, security, reliability, and operational impact; recommend investments and modernization priorities to senior leadership.
- Advise on complex projects and unresolved infrastructure issues, working with engineers, cybersecurity, application teams, project leaders, and stakeholders to turn requirements into workable designs.
- Review and approve solution architectures for major initiatives, guiding teams through tradeoffs, implementation plans, and exceptions to enterprise standards.
- Guide improvements in capacity planning, performance, configuration management, observability, recoverability, and service resilience.
- Lead technical vendor evaluations and assess proposals against laboratory requirements.
- Produce architecture diagrams, decision records, standards, and strategic reports; communicate recommendations to technical staff, customers, and senior management.
- Mentor I&O architects and promote sound engineering and architectural practices.
Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities - Education: Bachelor's degree in information technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent combination of education, certifications, and relevant experience.
- Experience: 10+ years of progressively increasing responsibility in infrastructure and operations, with demonstrated breadth across enterprise architecture, cloud, DevOps and automation, and Windows and Linux platform engineering.
- Technical Expertise: Deep expertise in one or more infrastructure disciplines and broad working knowledge across multiple I&O technologies. Demonstrated experience designing or guiding complex infrastructure solutions with cross-platform dependencies and significant operational or implementation risk. Ability to independently define and analyze unfamiliar technical problems, evaluate alternatives, and make sound recommendations that account for technical and economic feasibility.
- Problem Solving and Versatility: Technology-neutral and mission-oriented mindset with broad and deep experience in enterprise infrastructure, including networking, identity and access management (IAM), virtualization, cybersecurity, and systems integration. Experienced in hybrid-cloud and complex environments, with strong analytical and troubleshooting abilities. Proven ability to rapidly retool on emerging technologies. Curious, adaptable, and excited by emerging cloud and AI technologies. Strong business acumen with the ability to balance technical excellence, security, operational reliability, and cost optimization.
- Communication: Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills with the ability to communicate technical concepts to engineers, architects, leadership, and business stakeholders. Trusted technical leader with the ability to influence executives, business leaders, architects, engineering teams, and strategic partners.
- Mentorship and Team Development: Experience and comfort mentoring architects and senior engineers and serving as a technical leader to "raise the bar" within infrastructure engineering teams.
- Applicants must submit both a resume and cover letter for consideration.
Preferred Knowledge and Skills - 15+ years of relevant experience.
- Master's degree is highly desired.
- Experience supporting research, scientific computing, higher education, or Department of Energy environments.
- Experience with FinOps practices, cloud cost governance, and subscription management.
- Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks such as NIST, ISO 27001, SOC 2, or FedRAMP.
Other Information - This is a fully remote position with on-site presence available at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY
- Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position
- Applicants must submit both a resume and cover letter for consideration.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is committed to providing fair, equitable and competitive compensation. This is a multi-level role and the full salary range for this position is $126000 - $222500 / year. You will be placed at the level and salary commensurate with your experience. Salary offers will be commensurate with the final candidate's qualification, education and experience and considered with the internal peer group.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is committed to employee success and we believe that a comprehensive employee benefits program is an important and meaningful part of the compensation employees receive. Review more information at BNL | Benefits Program 
