Cloud Infrastructure and Storage Architect SME

IQUASAR LLC

1d•$98 - $102•Remote

About The Position

The Cloud Infrastructure and Storage Architect (SME) provides senior technical leadership for enterprise infrastructure architecture and modernization in support of the SEC ISS contract. The role translates mission and functional requirements into scalable, secure technical solutions across on-premises and hybrid/multi-cloud environments. The architect leads cross-functional engineering and operations teams to improve reliability, automation, and service performance in alignment with SEC OIT objectives. The position drives technology evaluations, proofs of concept, pilots, and demonstrations, while ensuring designs integrate with 24x7x365 enterprise operations and observability requirements. Architecture decisions must align with Zero Trust, FISMA, and SEC governance expectations. This is a 100% remote position for a federal client.

Requirements

U.S. citizenship.
Ability to obtain and maintain SEC Public Trust clearance or higher if required.
Bachelor's degree in a relevant field.
12 or more years of experience in enterprise IT infrastructure, including engineering, architecture, and administration of enterprise storage platforms.
At least 8 years of experience in IT infrastructure roles, including 5 or more years focused on Azure cloud engineering and architecture.
Experience with IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS cloud hosting architecture and design patterns addressing scalability, capacity, availability, performance, storage, cost, and application or platform requirements.
Experience managing multidisciplinary infrastructure, server, storage, and system operations teams.
Demonstrated ability to translate functional and business requirements into scalable enterprise technical solutions and lead integration efforts.
Experience designing, implementing, and managing secure, highly available cloud environments for enterprise services.
Experience leading Azure cloud migration and modernization initiatives in regulated or compliance-driven environments.
Hands-on experience designing, configuring, and administering Azure enterprise cloud environments using Virtual Machines, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Azure Containers, Kubernetes, Cloud Services, and related cloud-native technologies.
Extensive experience with enterprise storage platforms, SAN/NAS technologies, storage virtualization, and backup and recovery solutions.
Experience leading complex infrastructure and storage migrations, upgrades, modernization initiatives, and integrations across cloud and on-premises environments.
Experience supporting audit readiness, compliance requirements, governance controls, and technical documentation in federal or highly regulated environments.
Advanced expertise in storage performance tuning, capacity planning, disaster recovery, business continuity, and risk assessment.
Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams.
Hands-on experience with Clustered Data ONTAP software.
Strong experience with Azure DevOps, Repos, Pipelines, and Boards.
Experience with Microsoft Azure architecture, engineering, and operations; AWS cloud integration and hybrid-cloud environments; and cloud networking, storage, compute, app services, virtualization, and containerization.
Experience with Azure DevOps, Repos, Pipelines, and CI/CD implementation; DevSecOps practices and automation frameworks; and IaC using PowerShell, Bicep, ARM Templates, and Terraform.
Experience with reusable IaC modules, automated validation, governance controls, and drift detection.
Experience with Kubernetes, OpenShift, and cloud-native container platforms.
Experience with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), Azure Policy, RBAC, Conditional Access, Managed Identities, Zero Trust architecture, secure cloud design, cloud governance, compliance enforcement, operational security, and enterprise platform security architecture.
Knowledge of FISMA, FedRAMP, NIST, and regulatory compliance frameworks.
Experience with enterprise infrastructure architecture and design, SAN/NAS platforms, storage virtualization, Clustered Data ONTAP, backup, recovery, replication, disaster recovery, storage monitoring and tuning, multi-vendor server operating systems, virtualization, hybrid-cloud integration, system integration, scalability, resiliency, and mission-critical infrastructure troubleshooting.

Nice To Haves

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
HashiCorp Terraform Associate Certification.
NetApp Certified Data Administrator (NCDA) or equivalent.
Experience supporting U.S. Federal Government environments with FISMA, NIST, OMB, and FedRAMP compliance requirements.
Experience supporting SEC or similarly regulated financial-sector federal agencies.
Experience architecting and supporting observability, monitoring, and ITSM platform integrations.
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, OpenShift, Ansible, GitOps toolchains, and automation frameworks.
Experience implementing immutable infrastructure and policy-as-code controls in enterprise environments.
Experience leading architecture and modernization initiatives in 24x7x365 enterprise operations environments.
Proficiency in Ansible, Python, and Bash scripting.
Experience developing and enforcing infrastructure, cloud, and storage standards, policies, and operational best practices.
Experience with FinOps, cloud cost optimization, and cloud resource governance.

Responsibilities

Provide senior technical leadership for enterprise infrastructure architecture and modernization.
Translate mission, functional, and business requirements into scalable, secure enterprise technical solutions.
Lead cross-functional engineering, infrastructure, server, storage, system operations, network, security, and operations teams.
Design, implement, and manage secure, highly available cloud environments and hybrid/multi-cloud solutions.
Lead Azure cloud migration, modernization, integration, and infrastructure and storage migration initiatives.
Evaluate technologies and lead proofs of concept, pilots, demonstrations, and solution validation.
Develop architecture for cloud networking, storage, compute, application services, virtualization, and containerization.
Implement infrastructure as code, automation, CI/CD, governance controls, automated validation, and drift detection.
Support audit readiness, compliance, governance controls, and technical documentation in federal or highly regulated environments.
Plan and manage storage performance, capacity, disaster recovery, business continuity, and risk assessment.
Ensure architecture integrates with enterprise operations and observability requirements and aligns with Zero Trust, FISMA, and SEC governance.
Develop and enforce infrastructure, cloud, and storage standards, policies, and operational best practices.