Technical Services - Infrastructure Architect

WoodmenLife•Omaha, NE

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

WoodmenLife is seeking a senior individual-contributor Infrastructure Architect to provide architectural leadership and technical direction for infrastructure platforms, strategy, and modernization initiatives across Technical Services. The role designs and evolves secure, resilient, scalable, highly available, and operationally sustainable infrastructure across on-premises and hybrid environments. It develops infrastructure patterns, reference architectures, technical standards, and roadmaps, and evaluates technology investments while identifying technical debt, lifecycle risks, and modernization opportunities. The Infrastructure Architect also serves as System Architect for the Infrastructure, Operations & Security (IOS) Agile Release Train (ART). This includes providing architecture leadership for ART planning and delivery, maintaining the architectural runway, defining enablers, and coordinating technical dependencies, risks, constraints, and nonfunctional requirements. The role collaborates with Systems Engineering, Networking, Operations, Enterprise and Cloud Architecture, Security, and Application Services to align infrastructure capabilities with business objectives, enterprise architecture, security requirements, and operational needs. This is a hybrid position for candidates local to Omaha, Nebraska. It is a senior technical leadership role without people-management or operations-management responsibilities. Engineering and operations teams retain responsibility for implementation, service ownership, and production support. WoodmenLife describes its culture as collaborative and people-focused, with a strong work-life balance that includes Friday afternoons off year-round. The company will not sponsor work visas; applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Applicants must submit a resume that includes their full name, current residential address, email address, and phone number. Employment offers are contingent on applicable background, credit, fingerprint, drug, and reference checks.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
10+ years of progressive information technology experience.
5+ years of experience in infrastructure architecture, systems architecture, cloud architecture, or a related technical leadership role.
Experience designing enterprise infrastructure solutions across networking, compute, storage, virtualization, identity and access management, automation, observability, and hybrid cloud environments.
Experience developing infrastructure strategies, roadmaps, modernization initiatives, and lifecycle plans.
Experience supporting infrastructure modernization, platform transformation, and technical debt reduction.
Experience providing architecture leadership within an Agile Release Train, including PI Planning, architectural runway development, enabler definition, and cross-team dependency management.
Experience with architecture governance, technical design reviews, infrastructure planning, and significant technology decisions.
Strong understanding of infrastructure resiliency, high availability, disaster recovery, business continuity, capacity management, monitoring, observability, performance, and operational readiness.
Strong understanding of infrastructure security, identity and access management, regulatory requirements, and Zero Trust principles.
Working knowledge of IT service management, production operations, incident and problem management, and operational support practices.
Ability to evaluate technology alternatives based on technical fit, risk, security, supportability, operational impact, cost, and long-term sustainability.
Strong communication, facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and consensus-building skills.
Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams without direct authority.
Must be local to Omaha, Nebraska.
Must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; WoodmenLife will not sponsor work visas.
Resume must include full name, current residential address, email address, and phone number.

Nice To Haves

SAFe Architect, SAFe Agilist, or related scaled Agile certification.
Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert or another relevant cloud or infrastructure architecture certification.
Experience with Infrastructure as Code, including technologies such as Terraform or Bicep.
Experience with PowerShell and infrastructure automation.
Experience with Platform Engineering, DevOps, DevSecOps, and cloud operations.
Experience with ServiceNow, CMDB, monitoring, and observability platforms.
Experience evaluating vendor solutions, managed services, infrastructure investments, capacity requirements, and total cost of ownership.
Experience in insurance, financial services, or another regulated industry.

Responsibilities

Design and evolve secure, resilient, scalable, highly available, and operationally sustainable infrastructure architectures across on-premises and hybrid environments.
Develop infrastructure patterns, reference architectures, and technical guidance across networking, compute, storage, virtualization, identity and access management, observability, automation, and related technologies.
Translate business, technology, security, and operational requirements into infrastructure architecture designs and technical plans.
Evaluate infrastructure solutions for architectural alignment, feasibility, security, performance, interoperability, supportability, and operational readiness.
Document and communicate architecture decisions, dependencies, constraints, risks, and technical tradeoffs.
Help develop and execute infrastructure strategies, roadmaps, lifecycle plans, and modernization initiatives.
Identify infrastructure risks, technical debt, architectural gaps, unsupported technologies, and opportunities to simplify or modernize platforms.
Guide the evolution of on-premises and hybrid infrastructure and support approved cloud architecture.
Promote automation, Infrastructure as Code, Platform Engineering, DevOps, and DevSecOps practices.
Evaluate emerging technologies and infrastructure investments based on business value, technical fit, security, risk, cost, and operational readiness.
Guide improvements in infrastructure capacity, performance, availability, observability, reliability, resiliency, and operational efficiency.
Serve as System Architect for the Infrastructure, Operations & Security Agile Release Train and provide architectural leadership for ART planning and delivery.
Define and maintain the architectural runway and architectural enablers needed to support planned infrastructure capabilities.
Participate in PI Planning, architecture synchronization, technical planning, and other ART activities.
Coordinate architecture decisions, technical dependencies, risks, constraints, and nonfunctional requirements across teams.
Represent the IOS ART in architecture discussions and communicate relevant architecture matters to Technical Services and enterprise architecture stakeholders.
Partner with Enterprise and Cloud Architecture to align infrastructure platforms, patterns, roadmaps, standards, and modernization initiatives with enterprise technology direction.
Develop and recommend infrastructure-specific patterns and standards; collaborate with architecture, security, application, engineering, networking, and operations teams.
Evaluate internal and vendor-provided designs for security, resiliency, integration, supportability, and operational readiness.
Provide infrastructure architecture expertise for enterprise initiatives, platform migrations, technology implementations, and significant infrastructure changes.
Provide architectural guidance throughout solution design, implementation, validation, deployment, and transition to operations; help resolve implementation architecture and design challenges.
Ensure infrastructure solutions incorporate appropriate monitoring, observability, operational documentation, support procedures, recovery capabilities, and production-readiness requirements.
Support validation of resiliency, performance, capacity, security, failure scenarios, disaster recovery, and other nonfunctional requirements.
Apply lessons learned from implementations, incidents, service problems, and operational experience to improve architecture and reduce technical debt.
Advise Technical Services leadership on infrastructure architecture, technical risk, technology investments, modernization, and long-term direction.
Communicate architecture recommendations, risks, decisions, and tradeoffs to technical and nontechnical stakeholders; facilitate technical discussions and build consensus.
Mentor technical teams on infrastructure architecture principles, approved patterns, and modern infrastructure practices.
Influence technology direction across multiple teams without direct management authority.