Lead Platform Architect

Responsibilities

We are seeking a Lead Platform Architect to provide technical leadership and architectural oversight across a complex ecosystem of interconnected platforms, shared services, and mission capabilities.

 

The Lead Platform Architect will define and maintain the overarching technical architecture that enables multiple platforms to operate as a cohesive enterprise capability. This role will establish architectural boundaries, interfaces, shared services, communication patterns, and technical standards, while enabling individual platform teams to maintain ownership of detailed implementation within their respective areas.

 

Because the platform ecosystem will continue to evolve, the Lead Platform Architect will design for flexibility, interoperability, and long-term sustainability, ensuring platforms can be added, replaced, consolidated, or retired without requiring broad redesign of the overall environment.

Responsibilities Enterprise & Platform Architecture

• Define and maintain the overall technical architecture across cloud, on-premises, and security-domain environments.

• Establish architectural boundaries, responsibilities, interfaces, and shared-service patterns between platforms.

• Develop architecture patterns that allow individual platforms to evolve independently while minimizing unnecessary cross-platform dependencies.

• Maintain reference architectures, interface principles, technical standards, and architecture decision records.

• Ensure architectural decisions support long-term scalability, resilience, portability, supportability, and technology insertion.

Cross-Platform Architecture

• Define common architectural approaches for APIs, messaging, identity, authorization, service discovery, data exchange, observability, and software delivery.

• Identify capabilities that should be implemented as shared enterprise services rather than duplicated across individual platforms.

• Evaluate major design changes for cross-platform impacts and resolve architecture-level conflicts and dependencies.

• Establish architectural patterns that enable interoperability across diverse platforms and deployment environments.

• Balance standardization with the flexibility required for platform-specific implementation and mission needs.

Technical Leadership & Governance

• Lead architecture and technical-design reviews spanning multiple engineering and platform teams.

• Partner with platform leads, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, infrastructure, G2PS, ITSM, and mission engineering teams to ensure architectural alignment.

• Guide technology selection, modernization, and replacement decisions while minimizing unnecessary vendor-specific dependencies.

• Evaluate proposed technical changes and assess their impacts across systems, platforms, interfaces, and engineering organizations.

• Communicate architecture decisions, risks, dependencies, tradeoffs, and recommendations to program and customer leadership.

• Provide technical direction and architectural guidance while allowing platform-specific engineering teams to retain detailed implementation ownership.

Location: This position is fully onsite in Chantilly, VA

 

Qualifications Required Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance with CI Polygraph.

• Approximately 10–12 years of relevant experience in software, systems, platform, cloud, infrastructure, or enterprise architecture.

• Minimum of 10 years with BS/BA; an additional 4 years of experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.

• Demonstrated experience providing architecture leadership across multiple interconnected systems, platforms, or technical environments.

• Strong understanding of APIs, distributed systems, identity, networking, security boundaries, shared services, and software-delivery architectures.

• Strong experience with Kubernetes and containerized application environments.

• Experience designing hybrid architectures spanning cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

• Experience evaluating technical changes and their potential impacts across multiple systems and engineering teams.

• Strong architecture documentation, technical analysis, and communication skills.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with AWS GovCloud, C2S, SC2S, Secret/Top Secret cloud, or comparable classified cloud environments.

• Experience with large-scale, multi-platform, or system-of-systems architecture.

• Experience with GitLab and enterprise software-factory architectures.

• Experience with SysML, UAF, or Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).

• Experience with service mesh, event-driven architecture, or API gateways.

• NRO or Intelligence Community architecture experience.

Target Salary Range$146,000 - $234,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.