Cloud Platform Architect

Xcel Energy•Minneapolis, MN

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Xcel Energy is transforming its technology landscape to support reliable, secure, and sustainable energy delivery. The Cloud Platform Architect plays a critical role in this transformation by designing and governing the enterprise cloud foundation that supports applications, analytics, and grid ‑ adjacent systems. This role focuses on the cloud platform itself —not individual applications—ensuring that cloud services are secure, reliable, reusable, observable, and supportable across hybrid and multi ‑ cloud environments. The position wil l provide design and thought leadership in GCP, AWS, and Azure.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Technology, Science, Business or related field, or 4 years of experience equivalent to the position.
Seven years of related functional experience.
Exposure to diverse systems, technologies and processing environments in a large Corporate setting.
Project solution architecture experience.
Knowledge of core aspects of architecture (Software, Hardware, Network, Integration, Data, hosting models, platform types, etc.)
Strong analytical, problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
Extensive knowledge of future technology trends within area of expertise.
Excellent communication skills, effective with varying organizational levels and skill sets.
Excellent Relationship Management and collaboration skills, with a track record of working as one team cross-organizationally to drive innovation and business results.

Nice To Haves

8+ years of experience in infrastructure, platform, or enterprise architecture roles.
5+ years of hands-on experience with public cloud platforms.
Strong experience with Google Cloud Platform , including: Identity and access management, networking and connectivity, security and logging/monitoring services.
Experience designing and operating cloud platforms in large, complex environments.
Experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation tools .
Experience in regulated or mission ‑ critical industries (utilities, energy, financial services, healthcare).
Experience with hybrid and multi ‑ cloud environments (Azure and/or AWS).
Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks (e.g., NERC CIP, NIST).
Cloud certifications such as: Google Professional Cloud Architect, Azure or AWS architect certifications, CISSP, CISM, or similar.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and govern enterprise cloud foundations on GCP, AWS, and Azure – serving as a thought leader in projects, networking, identity, security, and shared services.
Establish cloud standards, patterns, and guardrails that enable teams to deliver solutions quickly and safely.
Ensure cloud platforms align with Xcel Energy’s Architecture Tenets, including security, observability, reusability, and supportability.
Enable workloads to run consistently across cloud, on ‑ premises , and edge environments.
Partner with security, infrastructure, operations, and delivery teams to ensure platforms are compliant, resilient, and operationally ready.
Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and architectural guidance across the organization.
Design enterprise cloud “landing zones” with built-in security, governance, and automation.
Define standards for networking, identity and access management, logging, monitoring, and platform services.
Support container based and cloud ‑ native hosting models, with flexibility for legacy and packaged solutions.
Embed security into cloud platforms from the start using Zero Trust principles.
Ensure compliance with regulatory and enterprise security requirements.
Partner with security teams to implement approved controls and services.
Promote Infrastructure as Code and CI/ CD based provisioning.
Reduce manual configuration and improve consistency through automation.
Create reusable cloud templates, modules, and patterns.
Design platforms for high availability, resiliency, and disaster recovery.
Ensure monitoring, logging, and alerting are built into all platform components.
Design platforms that can be effectively operated , supported, and maintained over time.
Work closely with architects, engineers, and business partners across IT and operational teams.
Participate in architecture reviews and governance forums.
Mentor and guide teams on cloud best practices and platform usage.