Role Summary
Principal technical authority for a public-facing portal platform. Defines the end-to-end target architecture - containerized Drupal on Kubernetes, event-driven integration via Kafka, API-first services, cloud data and secrets management, and an automated DevSecOps pipeline - and is accountable for the platform meeting performance, scalability, security, and accessibility obligations.
Key Responsibilities
• Own the solution architecture: application, integration, data, infrastructure, and security views, with documented decision records.
• Design event-driven integration using Apache Kafka - topic design, event schemas, producer/consumer libraries, idempotency, replay, and error handling - in place of point-to-point coupling.
• Define the API-first strategy: REST API standards for versioning, authentication, logging, monitoring, retry, and error handling.
• Architect the containerized runtime on Kubernetes (EKS) with managed relational data (Aurora), shared file storage (EFS), object storage (S3), centralized registry, CDN/WAF, and secrets management via a managed vault with pod identity.
• Establish centralized configuration management - no hardcoded environment settings, feature flags, or credentials.
• Define and drive the DevSecOps pipeline: containerized builds, GitFlow release process, automated functional and performance testing, container/image vulnerability scanning, and controlled promotion to staging and production.
• Design enterprise observability: centralized logging, distributed tracing, API and message-stream metrics, performance and business transaction dashboards.
• Architect reusable modules, a configurable form framework, and component libraries intended for reuse across future initiatives.
• Define the approach for AI-enabled capabilities - OCR, document classification, intelligent summarization, assisted case preparation - with human oversight, and for agentic developer tooling that accelerates engineering.
• Lead technical governance: design reviews, architecture compliance, technical debt strategy, and mentorship of leads and senior developers.
• Ensure architecture satisfies federal security requirements (STIG remediation, boundary definition, PPS documentation, encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access control) and Section 508 obligations.
• Architect Drupal 10+ with MySQL on the DOL PACE platform and ensure portability, maintainability, and alignment with DOL Enterprise Architecture and approved platform decisions.
• Define automated testing strategy across unit, API, Cypress/UI regression, Section 508, security, and performance testing, integrated as CI/CD quality gates.
• Define immutable audit logging, records-retention, encryption, identity, access-control, file-scanning, fault-tolerance, uptime, scalability, and browser/mobile architecture patterns required by the PWS.
• Lead ATO/security authorization support including authorization boundary, PPS, external interfaces, sensitive-data protections, baseline inventories, vulnerability remediation, and architecture evidence.
Required Skills & Experience
• 10+ years of software engineering with 5+ years as a lead architect on enterprise web platforms.
• 5+ years hands-on Drupal with full stack depth - architecture, module strategy, theming, performance, and security.
• Proven Apache Kafka architecture experience: event modeling, schema governance, producer/consumer patterns, and operational concerns.
• Deep AWS architecture experience: EKS/Kubernetes, Aurora, S3, EFS, Secrets Manager, ECR, CloudFront/WAF, IAM.
• DevSecOps ownership: GitLab CI/CD, containerization, IaC (Terraform or equivalent), automated security scanning (e.g., Trivy), release management.
• Integration experience with enterprise BPM/case management platforms (Appian or comparable) and identity providers (OIDC/SAML, Login.gov or equivalent).
• Database architecture across relational platforms; ability to reason about DB2 and cloud-native alternatives during migration.
• Demonstrated accountability for Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA compliance at the platform level.
• Agile/SAFe architectural leadership.
• Substantial hands-on experience with AI-assisted engineering tools and pragmatic judgment about where AI belongs in a federal platform.
• Experience with PACE or comparable enterprise container platforms and architecture of Drupal/MySQL workloads on Kubernetes/OpenShift.
• Demonstrated architecture of automated CI/CD quality gates, including Cypress or comparable UI automation, API tests, performance tests, and security scanning.
• Strong knowledge of federal security, privacy, records, Section 508, and release/configuration management requirements.
Preferred Qualifications
• AWS Solutions Architect Professional; Certified Kubernetes Administrator; Acquia/Drupal certification; SAFe Architect.
• Experience designing multi-tenant or reusable platform frameworks for reuse across agency programs.
• Experience with MCP-based or API-based AI service integration under enterprise security controls.
Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering with 10+ years of relevant experience; Master's preferred.
Does this opportunity sound like a fit for you? If so, join our talent community and click to apply now!!
