About the Role: AFS is seeking an Principal Solutions Architect to lead the design, build, and automation of our cutting-edge cloud infrastructure in a DevSecOps environment. The ideal candidate is passionate about building secure, scalable, and highly available platforms to meet business needs.

As a subject-matter expert in AWS, your deep knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon EKS for container orchestration, and advanced CI/CD pipelines will be instrumental in enabling our development teams to leverage a powerful, secure, and scalable self-service cloud platform.

While our primary focus is AWS, experience in a hybrid environment and private cloud platforms such as VMware or Openshift will make you stand out.

Responsibilities:

• AWS Infrastructure & Architecture:

• Design, build, and maintain scalable, resilient, and secure environments primarily within AWS using frameworks such as the Well-Architected framework.

• Implement and manage core AWS services, including networking (VPC, Transit Gateway, Route53), Kubernetes (EKS), compute (EC2, Lambda), storage (S3, EBS), and databases (RDS).

• Architect and operate containerized workloads using Amazon EKS, including cluster management, scaling, and security.

• Implement AWS IAM, creating and managing roles, policies, and permissions based on the principle of least privilege.

• Design immutable infrastructure

• DevSecOps & Automation:

• Champion and implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform to automate cloud resource provisioning and management.

• Develop, manage, and optimize robust CI/CD pipelines to enable rapid and reliable software delivery, integrate security best practices directly into the platform and pipelines.

• Develop custom automation scripts and tooling (e.g., using Python, Go, or Bash) to streamline operations and eliminate manual processes, heavily focusing on the usage of API’s.

• Team Enablement & Collaboration:

• Act as a cloud subject matter expert, providing guidance and support to development teams to optimize their use of the platform.

• Collaborate with stakeholders to evaluate new cloud-native technologies and recommend solutions that enhance efficiency and capability.

• Champion foundational best practices, including Git workflows and the proficient use of AI tools to accelerate development and problem-solving.

• Divide big projects into manageable tasks for junior staff.

Required Skills & Experience:

• 10 years of experience with any of the following technologies:

• • Expert-level proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), with strong hands-on experience in Terraform or other languages, to include advanced usage such as targeted applies, imports and more.
  • Deep experience with container orchestration, specifically designing and managing Amazon EKS 
  • Strong command of AWS IAM roles, policies, and security best practices.
  • Proven experience designing, building, and maintaining automated CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, AWSCodePipeline).
  • Solid understanding of cloud networking, Linux/Unix administration, and security principles.
  • Proficiency with Git and modernGitOps

• Must possess and maintain required DoD 8140 certifications.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with VMware vSphere in a hybrid cloud context.

• Experience with configuration management tools like Ansible.

• Familiarity with other public clouds (Azure, GCP).

• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Python, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript).

• Understanding of common authentication mechanisms, OIDC, OAuth2, LDAP, SAML.

• Experience contributing to open-source projects.

• One or more of the following certifications:

• AWS Solutions Architect - Professional

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

• HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate/Professional

Clearance

• An active TS/SCI federal security clearance is required