Principal Solution Architect, Platform Engineering

FIS • Jacksonville, FL

1d

About The Position

The Principal Solution Architect, reporting to the Head of Architecture for Platform Engineering, designs and delivers enterprise platform capabilities that help product engineering teams build secure, reliable, performant, high-quality products. The role contributes across Platform Engineering domains including AI Engineering, API and Event Management, Front End, Site Reliability Engineering, Developer Experience and Quality, and Customer Identity and Access Management.

The primary focus is public cloud enablement: architecting how cloud environments are vended, provisioned, secured, governed, and operated. This includes cloud-native serverless ecosystems and containerized workloads, delivered through infrastructure as code across cloud and on-premises environments. The architect leads public cloud foundations and defines the paved paths teams use to build and operate workloads, while also contributing broadly to enterprise platform architecture.

The role supports the company's modernization and transformation by designing, documenting, and driving adoption of modern engineering patterns, building roadmaps, applying enterprise architecture practices, and communicating the business value of architectural decisions. It requires significant hands-on software engineering experience, collaboration across platform and product stakeholders, vendor evaluation, practical validation through proofs of concept, and influence across the organization.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of solution architecture and senior software engineering experience, including significant hands-on product delivery in a fast-paced, global software delivery organization operating with ambiguity.
• Expert understanding of software and internet architecture, including modern front-end and back-end stacks, API management, IAM, cloud-native and on-premises infrastructure, containers, Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, networking, internet connectivity, and browser and mobile application delivery.
• Deep expertise designing and delivering enterprise-scale public cloud capabilities on at least one major provider (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud), including landing zones and account architecture, serverless and container platforms, cloud networking and hybrid connectivity, IaC, policy as code, and workload migration and modernization.
• Strong understanding of how inherited IAM, security, and network policies affect engineering teams' service security, reliability, operability, and troubleshooting, and how to design policies that keep teams safe and productive.
• Demonstrated track record delivering platform capabilities that power consumer-facing software products, especially API- and event-driven systems.
• Deep experience adopting and operating within modern SDLC and engineering practices, including AI-enabled development, DevSecOps, CI/CD, GitOps, and platform-as-a-product.
• Thorough understanding of modern information security and data protection practices, including the cloud shared responsibility model and applying these practices across technology stacks in regulated environments.
• Collaborative, low-ego approach focused on business outcomes, with the ability to motivate others and influence without authority.
• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to influence at every organizational level, tailoring messages to the audience.
• Sound judgment and flexibility, with the ability to consider broader context and strategy when developing solutions.
• Positive and adaptable approach to rapidly shifting priorities, topics, and environments.
• Initiative in translating strategy into action and driving delivery with a hands-on approach.
• Ability to remain calm and structured under pressure, including during major incidents and critical decisions.
• Strong relationship-building and negotiation skills with internal and external stakeholders, grounding decisions in data.
• Intellectual curiosity, commitment to excellence, and a reputation as someone others enjoy working with.
• Attention to detail, commitment to best practices, and bias toward continuous improvement.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in financial services or other regulated industries, including operational resilience and third-party risk requirements such as cloud concentration risk and exit planning.
• Experience shaping multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy, including workload placement, portability trade-offs, and data residency.
• Experience designing cloud infrastructure for AI workloads, including GPU capacity planning, managed AI services, and secure access to models and data.
• Professional-level cloud architecture certification, such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect.
• Undergraduate degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or another technical field.

Responsibilities

• Contribute platform thinking and subject matter expertise across platform domains, applying modern engineering and architectural patterns to systems involving APIs, services, events, data, user interfaces, and supporting capabilities.
• Create and communicate best-practice target-state designs using cloud-native patterns, supported by artifacts such as business cases, process context, context and sequence diagrams, and architecture decision records.
• Lead the architecture and roadmap for public cloud foundations, including landing zones, multi-account structures, automated account vending, network connectivity, identity federation, least-privilege IAM, encryption, key management, and policy-as-code guardrails.
• Define paved paths for product teams to build and run cloud workloads, including serverless and event-driven patterns, managed Kubernetes and container platforms, reusable IaC modules, GitOps delivery, drift detection, resilience, and FinOps practices.
• Partner with Platform Engineering leaders to introduce and champion modernization of front-end, middle-tier, and back-end technology stacks within an AI-first delivery model.
• Lead evaluations of new and existing vendors for alignment with Platform Engineering strategy, technology approaches, and integration patterns.
• Define and drive adoption of integration patterns across internal systems, services, and capabilities so quality data, events, and services are available across channels.
• Partner with platform owners, product partners, and stakeholders to intake and evaluate platform capabilities and features and influence designs before execution and delivery.
• Validate designs through hands-on proofs of concept and reference implementations, and contribute to architecture reviews and governance.
• Articulate the business value of architectural roadmaps, including fact-based future perspectives, options, and trade-offs aligned with business and engineering strategy.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed