Lead AWS Platform Architect

Our client is seeking a remote Lead AWS Platform Architect to provide senior technical leadership for a mission-critical cloud platform in a remote work environment.

This is a hands-on architecture and platform-engineering role focused on AWS, Amazon EKS, Terraform, GitOps, CI/CD, security, and federal cloud compliance. The platform is highly automated, with infrastructure and application changes managed through code, peer review, and deployment pipelines rather than manual console configuration.

The Lead AWS Platform Architect will take ownership of platform architecture and implementation across multiple AWS environments, helping guide the evolution toward a secure multi-account federal cloud architecture.

The right candidate is equally comfortable designing cloud architecture and implementing it. You should be able to move from architecture decisions and Terraform modules to EKS operations, GitOps workflows, CI/CD security controls, and production troubleshooting.

Success in this role means delivering secure, reliable, highly automated cloud infrastructure while raising engineering standards across architecture, security, change control, automation, and operational evidence.

What You Will Do

• Serve as a senior technical lead for AWS platform architecture, engineering, security, and automation.

• Own and evolve Terraform across multi-environment and multi-account AWS infrastructure.

• Develop reusable Terraform modules and manage remote state, dependencies, lifecycle, and infrastructure drift.

• Safely reconcile existing AWS resources with Infrastructure as Code.

• Design, operate, and improve production Amazon EKS environments.

• Manage EKS networking, autoscaling, add-ons, workload identity, Helm, ingress, load balancing, upgrades, and cluster lifecycle.

• Design and maintain secure AWS networking and identity patterns.

• Support IAM, workload identity, network isolation, secrets management, and least-privilege access.

• Develop and extend GitOps deployment models using Argo CD, Flux, or comparable technologies.

• Design and maintain GitLab CI/CD pipelines supporting infrastructure and application delivery.

• Implement automated security controls including SAST, Infrastructure as Code scanning, container scanning, secrets detection, policy-as-code, and deployment gates.

• Support secure container supply-chain practices including image validation, signing, and deployment controls.

• Help design and implement a federal multi-account AWS landing-zone architecture.

• Develop approaches for cross-account identity, networking, environment isolation, and controlled promotion between development, testing, and production environments.

• Work with AWS services including VPC, IAM, EKS, RDS/Aurora, S3, CloudFront, Secrets Manager, Lambda, and related cloud technologies.

• Support cloud-native, containerized, microservices, and serverless architectures.

• Implement monitoring, logging, alerting, and continuous security visibility across the platform.

• Support the technical implementation of controls aligned with NIST SP 800-53, FISMA, RMF, and Authority to Operate requirements.

• Produce and maintain technical evidence supporting security assessments, compliance reviews, and ATO activities.

• Troubleshoot complex AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, networking, GitOps, CI/CD, and security issues.

• Mentor engineers and provide technical direction on cloud architecture, automation, Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code, and DevSecOps practices.

• Improve engineering standards around peer review, change management, deployment validation, documentation, and evidence-based operations.

• Collaborate with developers, security teams, architects, program stakeholders, and other technical personnel.

• Perform other related technical responsibilities as assigned.

What You Will Bring

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional experience in cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, systems engineering, or a related discipline, including senior ownership of production environments.

• 5+ years of hands-on experience engineering and supporting AWS cloud environments.

• Deep hands-on expertise with Terraform, including reusable modules, remote state, dependency management, and infrastructure drift remediation.

• Significant experience operating Amazon EKS or Kubernetes at production scale.

• Experience with Kubernetes networking, workload identity, Helm, autoscaling, ingress, load balancing, and cluster lifecycle management.

• Strong hands-on experience with AWS services including VPC, IAM, EKS, RDS/Aurora, S3, CloudFront, Secrets Manager, and related technologies.

• Experience designing or supporting multi-environment and multi-account AWS architectures.

• Hands-on experience implementing GitOps using Argo CD, Flux, or comparable technologies.

• Experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, with GitLab CI/CD strongly preferred.

• Hands-on DevSecOps experience implementing automated security scanning, secrets detection, Infrastructure as Code scanning, container scanning, policy-as-code, or pipeline security gates.

• Experience with Docker and secure containerized application environments.

• Experience supporting cloud-native, microservices, or serverless architectures.

• Working knowledge of federal cybersecurity frameworks such as FISMA, NIST SP 800-53, and RMF.

• Familiarity with the technical evidence and controls required to support an Authority to Operate.

• Strong troubleshooting, architecture, documentation, and communication skills.

• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and provide technical leadership.

• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing or operating AWS Organizations, Control Tower, federal landing zones, or comparable multi-account architectures.

• Experience with AWS GovCloud or FedRAMP-authorized cloud environments.

• Experience with container supply-chain security, SBOMs, image signing, admission control, or AWS Signer.

• Experience with CloudWatch, Grafana, Prometheus, or comparable observability platforms.

• Experience supporting FISMA Moderate or other regulated production environments.

• Experience with high-availability, mission-critical cloud systems.

• Familiarity with scientific, environmental, weather, geospatial, or other data-intensive systems.

• Familiarity with scientific data formats such as GRIB or NetCDF.

• Relevant AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, or DevOps certifications.

Work Authorization / Security Clearance Requirements

• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.