Cloud and Infrastructure Architect

Noble Research Institute•Ardmore, OK

About The Position

At Noble, we believe the health of soil, plants, animals, and humans is one and indivisible. We believe in rebuilding healthy soils and helping producers maintain a strong bottom line. Through these two actions, we can transform degraded grazing lands across the United States, benefiting the environment and society as a whole. Our focus is to help farmers and ranchers apply regenerative ranching principles to the nation’s 654 million acres of grazing lands. This monumental undertaking requires thousands of producers across the U.S. to overcome significant barriers and change their current practices to work with nature, not against it. Our Information Technology team supports the organization’s mission through service, infrastructure, and technologies providing scalability and integration that seamlessly deliver Noble’s educational products to facilitate the regeneration of grazing lands. This work is crucial for us to deliver information necessary for farmers and ranchers to triumph over the barriers and ultimately benefit all of society through their efforts. We live to find new ways to generate usable information so farmers and ranchers can leave their land better at sunset than at sunrise. So, do you want to join us? We are looking for a Cloud and Infrastructure Architect As a cloud and infrastructure architect, you will be responsible for providing architectural leadership and technical expertise for the Institute’s cloud and on-premises infrastructure platforms. The work you do contributes to the organizational goal, in turn making a difference in a producer’s operation, their life and the society that depends on them.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in IT, MIS, computer science, or related field (or equivalent experience – see education and experience requirements)
In-depth experience with Microsoft Azure and hybrid cloud environments
Expertise in core infrastructure areas: compute, storage, networking, identity, and Azure services
Experience with virtualization, backup, and disaster recovery across cloud and on-premises platforms
Ability to guide and mentor technical teams and provide architectural direction
Excellent communication and planning skills

Responsibilities

Providing technical leadership
Leading initiatives to solve complex infrastructure challenges across cloud and on-premises environments, including compute, storage, networking, identity, and platform services.
Advising, guiding, and mentoring teammates on infrastructure architecture, design patterns, and security standards.
Serving as a trusted technical resource to IT and business stakeholders to further Noble’s mission.
Staying current on emerging infrastructure technologies and recommending enhancements, upgrades, and modernization strategies.
Defining and maintaining hybrid infrastructure architecture, including integration between cloud platforms and on-premises systems, ensuring scalability, availability, and resilience aligned with business needs.
Establishing standards, reference architectures, and best practices while evaluating and selecting infrastructure technologies that align with organizational strategy and long-term goals.
Contributing to strategic direction through development of infrastructure roadmaps that support modernization, scalability, and organizational priorities.
Working with leadership and stakeholders to align infrastructure capabilities with business objectives, identifying opportunities for innovation, process improvement, and effective technology adoption.
Providing architectural oversight for the implementation of infrastructure solutions, including cloud services, virtualization, storage, backup, and disaster recovery.
Guiding the design and deployment of cloud environments (e.g., Azure) and on-premises systems to ensure consistency, security, and performance.
Collaborating with engineering team to ensure solutions are implemented according to architectural standards.
Managing the lifecycle of infrastructure platforms, including selection, implementation, optimization, and retirement.
Assisting IT Director with planning and budgeting for infrastructure-related investments.
Identifying opportunities for modernization, cost optimization, and operational improvement.
Working with Institute leaders to ensure protection, confidentiality, privacy, integrity and availability of data and systems.
Aligning and building business-driven processes and policies that best position Noble's data and security.
Complying, as an IT employee who has access to Confidential data, with the Data and Systems Security Policy.
Working with stakeholders to translate business requirements into infrastructure solutions.
Bridging the gap between enterprise architecture, applications, and infrastructure operations.
Collaborating across IT to ensure alignment between cloud, on-premises, and application architecture.