Solution Architect – Cloud, Infrastructure & Technical Leadership

Job Description: Solution Architect – Cloud, Infrastructure & Technical Leadership

Location: Des Moines, IA (Hybrid)

Job Type: Contract

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Solution Architect to lead enterprise solution design, cloud transformation, infrastructure modernization, and AI/ML platform initiatives. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in cloud architecture, enterprise networking, cybersecurity, application modernization, containerization, and DevOps automation.

The candidate will translate complex business and technical requirements into scalable, secure, resilient, and cost-effective architectures while providing technical leadership across engineering, cloud, infrastructure, and application teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end solution architecture for enterprise infrastructure, cloud transformation, application modernization, and AI/ML initiatives.
• Design scalable and secure solutions across cloud, compute, storage, networking, databases, identity, security, and integration domains.
• Architect hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud solutions using AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Lead enterprise application and infrastructure migration assessments, dependency analysis, migration planning, and workload modernization.
• Design cloud landing zones, networking, identity integration, security controls, monitoring, logging, and governance frameworks.
• Develop architecture solutions for Kubernetes, container platforms, microservices, serverless computing, and API gateways.
• Establish Infrastructure as Code (IaC) standards using Terraform and support CI/CD pipeline implementation.
• Design enterprise networking and security solutions involving firewalls, load balancers, SDN, SD-WAN, and hybrid-cloud connectivity.
• Support AI/ML infrastructure architecture, GPU-based workloads, GenAI, LLM platforms, and machine learning inference solutions.
• Conduct architecture reviews, technical workshops, and governance sessions to ensure alignment with enterprise standards.
• Prepare architecture diagrams, design documents, technical decision records, implementation plans, and bills of materials.
• Collaborate with application, infrastructure, networking, cybersecurity, DevOps, data, and operations teams.
• Evaluate technologies and architectural alternatives based on scalability, performance, security, maintainability, and total cost of ownership.
• Identify technical risks, manage dependencies, and provide technical direction throughout the solution lifecycle.
• Communicate architecture recommendations and trade-offs to technical teams, business stakeholders, and executive leadership.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field.
• Significant experience in enterprise solution architecture, technical architecture, cloud architecture, or infrastructure engineering.
• Proven experience designing complex solutions across cloud, applications, infrastructure, networking, security, and data platforms.
• Strong hands-on architecture experience with at least one major public cloud platform, preferably AWS, with working knowledge of Azure and GCP.
• Experience with enterprise application modernization and data center-to-cloud migration programs.
• Strong understanding of:
• Cloud computing, storage, networking, databases, and security.
• Hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud architecture.
• Enterprise networking and network security.
• Kubernetes and container platforms.
• Virtualization technologies.
• Terraform, Infrastructure as Code, and DevOps automation.
• API and integration architecture.
• High availability, disaster recovery, scalability, and performance optimization.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, communication, stakeholder management, and technical leadership skills.

Preferred Technical Skills

Cloud Platforms

• AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• VMware Cloud and OpenStack

Infrastructure & Virtualization

• VMware ESXi/vSphere, Hyper-V, KVM
• Linux and Windows environments
• SAN, NAS, NFS, and enterprise storage

Containers & DevOps

• Kubernetes, Amazon EKS, OpenShift, Rancher, Docker
• Terraform, Jenkins, CI/CD pipelines
• Infrastructure provisioning and deplo