AWS Resident Architect - Senior Cloud Solutions Architect

Location: Customer Site - Minimum of three days per week required onsite - Ideal candidate will live within 2 hours of Harrisburg, PA.

Employment Type: Full Time


Security Clearance: Ability to obtain Public Sector clearance preferred




Job role will be highly compensated commensurate with education, experience, knowledge, and overall qualifications. If applicable, relocation assistance or corporate housing will be provided to individuals located outside of the Harrisburg area.




Position Overview


We are seeking a Senior AWS Solutions Architect to serve as a Resident Architect for enterprise and public sector customer engagements.


The Resident Architect operates as a strategic cloud advisor rather than an implementation engineer, focusing on architectural governance, platform maturity, and adoption enablement rather than direct workload delivery.


The Resident Architect provides ongoing architectural advisory, governance, and optimization guidance following cloud implementation projects. This role sustains AWS adoption momentum by ensuring architectures remain aligned with AWS best practices, operational maturity goals, and regulatory requirements.


The Resident Architect works closely with customer engineering teams, AWS account teams, and Strategic’s Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) to support cloud platform maturity, modernization initiatives, and operational readiness.


Unlike traditional staff augmentation roles, this position focuses on strategic advisory, architectural validation, and adoption enablement, helping organizations extend and operationalize AWS architectures implemented during major transformation programs.



Key Responsibilities


Cloud Architecture Advisory


Serve as the primary cloud architecture advisor for assigned customer environments.
Validate evolving architectures against the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
Identify architectural drift and recommend remediation strategies.
Develop and maintain current-state and target-state architecture diagrams.
Support architecture governance processes and design decision documentation.


Platform Engineering Enablement


Provide guidance on:

Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)
CI/CD pipeline architectures
Containerization strategies (Kubernetes / ECS / EKS)
Landing zone design
Multi-account governance

Recommend automation strategies to improve operational efficiency and reliability.


Operational Readiness & Cloud Optimization


Conduct Well-Architected Reviews and operational readiness assessments.
Support observability, monitoring, logging, and incident response improvements.
Assist teams in improving reliability, scalability, and performance of cloud workloads.
Identify cost optimization opportunities and FinOps alignment.


Cloud Migration & Modernization


Advise on migration strategies including:

Rehost
Replatform
Refactor
Replace
Retire

Support phased modernization roadmaps aligned to business objectives.


Security & Compliance Advisory


Provide architectural guidance aligned to:

FedRAMP
CJIS
HIPAA
FERPA
NIST frameworks

Support DevSecOps integration and IAM best practices.
Guide secure architecture patterns including encryption, network segmentation, and logging.


Customer Enablement & Knowledge Transfer


Mentor internal engineering teams on AWS architecture best practices.
Conduct architecture workshops and technical briefings.
Support backlog prioritization for cloud improvements and adoption initiatives.


Stakeholder Coordination


Coordinate with:

AWS account teams
AWS TAMs
Strategic delivery leadership
Customer engineering leadership

Provide monthly and quarterly architecture reviews and reporting.


Engagement Model


Resident Architects operate within a structured advisory delivery model, typically supporting customers through monthly architectural capacity engagements.


Typical activities include:


Architecture reviews
Platform engineering advisory
Governance and compliance alignment
Migration advisory
AWS service adoption guidance


This model enables customers to access senior cloud architecture expertise without requiring a full-time internal hire while maintaining alignment with AWS architectural best practices.



Required Qualifications


Education


Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent experience.


Certifications


Required:


AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate


Preferred:


AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
AWS DevOps Engineer Professional
AWS Security Specialty
Kubernetes certifications (CKA / CKAD)
FinOps Practitioner


Required Experience


8+ years cloud architecture experience
5+ years designing and deploying AWS architectures
Experience supporting regulated or public-sector cloud environments (e.g., FedRAMP, CJIS, HIPAA, NIST frameworks, or GovCloud)
Proven experience in:

AWS networking architecture
Identity and access management
Multi-account governance
Infrastructure-as-code automation
Cloud security architecture



Experience supporting environments involving:


AWS Organizations
Landing Zone frameworks
DevSecOps pipelines
Hybrid architectures
Cloud migrations and modernization programs


Technical Skills


Core AWS Services


VPC networking architecture
IAM and security architecture
EC2 / EKS / ECS
S3 / storage architectures
RDS / Aurora / data platforms
CloudWatch / observability
AWS Config / Security Hub


Platform & DevOps


Terraform / CloudFormation
CI/CD platforms
Container orchestration (EKS / Kubernetes)
GitOps workflows


Security & Compliance


Encryption architectures
Network segmentation
Logging and audit frameworks
Regulatory cloud environments


Preferred Experience


Public Sector / SLED cloud programs
AWS Professional Services engagement support
FedRAMP / GovCloud environments
AI/ML and data platform architectures
Amazon Connect or digital service architectures
Large-scale migration programs


Soft Skills


The ideal candidate will demonstrate:



Executive-level communication skills
Ability to influence architecture decisions
Customer advisory mindset
Strong technical documentation ability
Ability to translate business outcomes into architecture strategies




Physical Demands


The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this job. Work is primarily performed in an office environment. Regularly required to sit. Regularly required use hands to finger, handle, or feel, reach with hands and arms to handle objects, and operate tools, computer, and/or controls. Required to speak and hear. Occasionally required to stand and walk. Exposed to general office noise with computers, printers and light traffic. Job description is not all encompassing. Ad hoc duties may be assigned as deemed appropriate by management.



Benefits: Medical Insurance, Dental Insurance, Life Insurance, Vision Insurance, Short and Long-term Disability Insurance, Pet Insurance, 401k Plan, Paid Vacation Days, Paid Sick Days, Paid Holidays, Wellness Incentives, Referral Bonuses



Screening Requirements: Background Check - must be US citizen and possess or be capable of obtaining a security clearance, Drug Testing