Principal Cloud Infrastructure Architect

ZipStaff•Washington, DC

17h•Onsite

About The Position

ZipStaff is seeking a Principal Cloud Infrastructure Architect for technology modernization at a major passenger-rail organization. You will set target-state enterprise architecture, Zero Trust baselines, and PCI-DSS patterns across hybrid cloud, networking, applications, and regulated payments. This is a senior individual-contributor architecture seat — not a team-manager role and not a hands-on cloud-admin role.

Requirements

13+ years in enterprise architecture, infrastructure architecture, or related technical leadership.
2–3 years embedded in a formal Enterprise Architecture practice.
Delivery of business value in a large enterprise environment ($500M+ scale).
Architectures for AI/ML integration, Zero Trust, microsegmentation, and PCI-DSS payment environments.
Ability to explain complex designs to C-suite and senior engineers without direct authority.
Concurrent architecture engagements and portfolio transformation.
Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Data/Intelligence, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
Ability to work on-site in Washington, DC.
Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Master’s or MBA.
Travel, transportation, or passenger rail.
Breadth across business, solution, infrastructure, and data architecture.
DevSecOps pipelines, automated policy enforcement, software-defined networking, and AI-assisted architecture workflows.

Responsibilities

Define and govern target-state architectures, standards, and multi-year roadmaps across hybrid cloud, infrastructure automation, analytics, asset management, and AI-enabled decision support.
Evaluate Generative AI, machine learning, and process-automation use cases and turn them into secure deployment architectures with data governance, access control, auditability, and ownership.
Set architectural direction for Zero Trust, cloud networking, identity-aware access, and microsegmentation, on-premises and in cloud.
Run technical risk assessments and set patterns aligned to PCI-DSS, NIST, ISO/IEC 27001, and Federal Railroad Administration rules.
Use AI-assisted architecture workflows to speed designs, risk analyses, and executive material, and leave reusable patterns behind.
Coach peer architects and engineering through design walkthroughs and reference implementations, without direct reports.
Hold clear integration boundaries with platform architects.