Technical Services - Infrastructure Architect

WoodmenLIfe • Omaha, NE

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

WoodmenLife is seeking an Infrastructure Architect to provide architectural leadership and technical direction for infrastructure platforms, strategy, and modernization across Technical Services. This senior individual-contributor role shapes enterprise infrastructure direction across on-premises and hybrid environments, with a focus on secure, resilient, scalable, highly available, supportable, and operationally sustainable solutions. It is not a people-management or operations-management position.

The role develops infrastructure patterns, reference architectures, technical standards, roadmaps, lifecycle plans, and modernization initiatives. It evaluates technology investments and identifies technical debt, lifecycle risks, architectural gaps, and opportunities to modernize or simplify platforms. The architect also supports approved cloud architecture and promotes automation, Infrastructure as Code, Platform Engineering, DevOps, and DevSecOps practices.

The Infrastructure Architect serves as System Architect for the Infrastructure, Operations & Security (IOS) Agile Release Train, providing architecture leadership for planning and delivery. Responsibilities include participating in PI Planning and other ART activities, maintaining the architectural runway, defining architectural enablers, and coordinating technical dependencies, risks, constraints, and nonfunctional requirements across teams.

The position collaborates with Enterprise and Cloud Architecture and teams across security, applications, engineering, networking, and operations. It provides architectural guidance from solution design through implementation, validation, deployment, and transition to operations, including attention to monitoring, documentation, recovery capabilities, and production readiness. The role advises Technical Services leadership and influences technology direction across multiple teams without direct management authority.

The position is hybrid in Omaha, Nebraska, and applicants must be local to Omaha. WoodmenLife will not sponsor work visas; applicants must already be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Candidates must submit a resume containing their full name, current residential address, email address, and phone number. Employment offers are contingent on applicable background, credit, fingerprint, drug-screen, and reference checks. WoodmenLife describes its culture as collaborative, with an emphasis on work-life balance, including Friday afternoons off year-round. The company states that it is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes people regardless of background and beliefs.

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 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 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 design challenges during implementation.
• Ensure 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 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.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package.
• Comprehensive benefits package; details are available on WoodmenLife’s careers benefits webpage.
• Friday afternoons off year-round.
• Collaborative environment and an emphasis on strong work-life balance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior