Principal Architect

TEKsystems•New York, NY

18h•Remote

About The Position

The Principal Cloud Practice Architect is a senior leadership role within the AWS Practice, accountable for shaping strategy, leading complex consulting and delivery programs, and serving as a top-level technical authority for clients, sellers, partners, and internal delivery teams. This role is responsible for architecting and governing large-scale AWS modernization, migration, platform engineering, data, AI/ML, and cloud-native transformation programs with measurable business outcomes. This position is differentiated from senior Architect roles by the scale and criticality of engagements, the breadth of cross-functional leadership, and the expectation to operate as one of the practice's most trusted AWS experts. Principal Architects lead multi-workstream programs, influence executive stakeholders, define technical direction across portfolios, mentor architects and engineers, and materially contribute to practice growth, differentiated offerings, and strategic client relationships. Programs typically span enterprise transformation initiatives, managed services transition, application modernization, landing zones, platform engineering, resilience, security, and emerging AI-enabled solutions. The ideal candidate brings deep AWS expertise across infrastructure, application modernization, microservices, serverless, platform engineering, DevOps, security, networking, governance, and operations. They also understand modern AI and ML services on AWS and can advise clients on how to integrate generative AI, agentic capabilities, automation, and intelligent workflow patterns into business and technology platforms in a secure, scalable, and responsible way. This role may require up to 25% travel.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical discipline required.
12+ years of experience in information technology, cloud transformation, and/or professional services, including significant architecture leadership responsibilities.
8+ years of experience as a Cloud Architect, Principal Architect, Lead Architect, or equivalent architecture leadership role.
9+ years of deep AWS experience, including hands-on design and delivery across core, advanced, and enterprise AWS services.
6+ years of experience leading cloud migration and modernization programs for enterprise clients.
6+ years of experience with microservices, serverless architectures, containers, and cloud-native engineering practices.
Demonstrated success leading large, complex programs and guiding multiple teams through architecture, delivery, and operational transformation.
Expert-level knowledge of AWS services such as EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge, S3, DynamoDB, RDS, Aurora, IAM, KMS, CloudWatch, Route 53, ACM, Systems Manager, Step Functions, and related services.
Strong experience with AWS enterprise services and patterns including Organizations, Control Tower, Landing Zone concepts, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect, hybrid connectivity, identity integration, and governance guardrails.
Strong understanding of AWS AI capabilities such as BedRock, AgentCore, Transform and QuickSuite.
Deep experience with infrastructure as code and automation, preferably Terraform and/or AWS-native tooling, plus strong experience with CI/CD platforms and engineering workflows.
Strong understanding of security, networking, reliability, performance, observability, disaster recovery, and cost optimization in AWS enterprise environments.
Hands-on experience with one or more programming and scripting languages such as Python, Java, JavaScript/Node.js, C#, Bash, or PowerShell.
Ability to lead architecture review boards, challenge design decisions constructively, and make sound decisions in ambiguous or high-pressure environments.
Strong executive communication skills with the ability to explain architecture and transformation strategy to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Ability to travel to client locations as needed and work effectively across distributed teams and time zones.
AWS Professional-level certification required.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical discipline preferred.
15+ years of experience in information technology and/or professional services, with a strong record of enterprise transformation leadership.
Demonstrated experience building or scaling cloud practices, delivery capabilities, technical communities, or strategic offerings.
Experience with AWS AI/ML services and modern intelligent solution patterns, such as Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, vector-enabled architectures, MLOps, or other production AI integration patterns.
Experience leading application modernization strategies that include refactoring, replatforming, event-driven design, domain-aligned architectures, and platform engineering models.
Strong command of DevOps, SRE, and platform engineering principles, including observability, release engineering, developer experience, and policy-driven automation.
Prior success in highly consultative, client-facing roles requiring both technical authority and business acumen.
Track record of mentoring architects and influencing executive stakeholders across complex organizations.
Additional AWS specialty or associate certifications strongly preferred.
Relevant certifications in Kubernetes, Terraform, security, data, AI/ML, or architecture frameworks are a plus.

Responsibilities

Define end-to-end architecture for large, complex AWS programs spanning migration, modernization, cloud-native development, platform engineering, security, resiliency, observability, and operations.
Establish target-state architecture, reference patterns, guardrails, and decision frameworks that align business priorities, engineering constraints, and delivery execution.
Serve as the escalation point for the most complex architecture, integration, performance, governance, and operational design challenges.
Lead large consulting and delivery programs, often across multiple teams, workstreams, geographies, and partners, ensuring technical quality, delivery confidence, and alignment to client outcomes.
Drive engagement transition, operating model setup, technical governance, risk management, and delivery assurance for complex statements of work and managed services engagements.
Provide architectural leadership throughout the full lifecycle from assessment and roadmap through implementation, cutover, optimization, and ongoing evolution.
Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, including technology leaders, platform owners, product teams, and executive sponsors.
Present architecture options, tradeoffs, roadmaps, investment cases, and transformation strategies to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Identify expansion opportunities and help shape follow-on work by connecting technical possibilities to business priorities.
Influence the evolution of the AWS Practice by shaping offerings, accelerators, reusable assets, delivery methods, technical standards, and go-to-market messaging.
Contribute thought leadership internally and externally through workshops, enablement, client-facing artifacts, architecture reviews, and strategic solutioning support.
Stay current on AWS roadmaps, modernization trends, platform engineering practices, and AI/ML innovation to keep the practice differentiated and market relevant.
Mentor architects, engineers, and technical leads across multiple engagements; elevate architecture quality, documentation rigor, and engineering best practices.
Lead by example in technical depth, delivery discipline, collaboration, and customer engagement.
Support recruiting, interviewing, talent development, capability assessment, and succession planning for the practice.
Advise clients on practical use of AI/ML services and modern intelligent application patterns on AWS, including generative AI, automation, retrieval-augmented solutions, workflow orchestration, and agentic architectures where appropriate.
Help teams integrate AI capabilities into modern platforms while addressing security, governance, cost management, observability, model operations, and responsible-use considerations.
Translate emerging AI and agentic technologies into repeatable client use cases, architecture patterns, and practice offerings.
Support pre-sales and pursuit activities by contributing to solution strategy, technical positioning, estimates, risk reviews, staffing assumptions, and executive-level client conversations.
Partner with Solution Architects, Solution Executives, Practice leaders, and Delivery leaders to shape commercially sound, technically credible solutions.
Help define engagement KPIs and OKRs and identify opportunities for optimization through automation, reliability engineering, platform improvements, and service management maturity.
Create and maintain practice artifacts, architecture standards, reference implementations, and reusable assets that improve speed, consistency, and quality across the AWS portfolio.