Senior Enterprise Infrastructure Architect

Banner Life family of companies•Frederick, MD

5d•$144,800 - $199,100•Hybrid

About The Position

Banner Life Insurance Company is seeking a Senior Enterprise Infrastructure Architect to define, govern, and evolve the company's future-state infrastructure architecture. This role is critical for enabling the company's ambitious growth goals by transforming infrastructure into a scalable, cloud-enabled, intelligent, and resilient platform. The architect will ensure that Network, Systems, Storage, Telecom, and Cloud capabilities work together as an integrated platform, aligning with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity expectations, and operational resilience. The focus is on the 'CHANGE / TRANSFORM' agenda, defining future-state architecture, engineering guardrails, and operational readiness criteria, while managed service partners handle day-to-day execution.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field (master’s preferred).
Demonstrated experience defining target-state architecture and architecture roadmaps across multiple infrastructure domains.
Experience leading architecture for large-scale infrastructure modernization, cloud migration, hybrid platform transformation, or legacy decommissioning initiatives.
Experience influencing senior engineers, managed service partners, cyber teams, application teams, and business stakeholders without direct authority.
Deep hands-on experience with at least one major public cloud platform (e.g., Microsoft Azure, AWS, or GCP); strong preference for Azure in hybrid enterprise environments.
Proven experience designing hybrid architectures spanning on-premises data centers and public cloud, including connectivity, identity, and security.
Strong understanding of enterprise identity and access management (e.g., Entra ID/Azure AD, Active Directory, SSO, RBAC, conditional access, workload identities).
Expertise in cloud and hybrid networking (VNETs/VPCs, subnets, routing, DNS, load balancing, VPN, private connectivity such as ExpressRoute/Direct Connect).
Solid knowledge of security architecture and Zero Trust principles, including network segmentation, encryption, secrets management, and security posture management tools.
Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, Ancible, Bicep, ARM, CloudFormation) and Git-based workflows.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and how infrastructure integrates into DevOps toolchains.
Understanding containerization and orchestration concepts (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and how they fit into hybrid architectures.
Experience with monitoring, logging, and observability tools and patterns for distributed systems.
Practical experience with application and infrastructure migration strategies, including assessment, planning, and execution in hybrid environments.
Knowledge of cloud governance, policy-as-code, and compliance controls in enterprise environments.
Awareness of FinOps principles and the cost implications of architectural choices.
Deep knowledge of enterprise infrastructure (servers, storage, networking, cloud, virtualization, middleware).
Strong experience in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid cloud strategies.
Understanding of enterprise security frameworks and compliance standards for financial/insurance sectors.
Familiarity with modern infrastructure technologies (containers, Kubernetes, automation frameworks, zero-trust security).
Familiarity with automation and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible, etc.).
Knowledge of cybersecurity principles and compliance frameworks (NIST, ISO 27001, etc.).
Strong systems thinking and ability to understand complex, interconnected environments.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Proven ability to lead architecture discussions, drive consensus, and influence without direct authority.
Ability to document architecture, patterns, and decisions clearly and concisely.
6+ years of IT infrastructure experience, with at least 3 years in an architecture role.
Insurance of Finance industry experience is strongly preferred.
Equivalent combination of education and deep, hands-on enterprise architect experience will be considered.
Collaborative mindset and experience working across infrastructure, security, application, and business teams.
Strong decision-making skills with a focus on balancing risk, speed, cost, and long-term maintainability.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree preferred.
Relevant cloud certifications (e.g., Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional) are a plus but not required if experience is strong.
TOGAF, Zachman, or other Enterprise Architecture frameworks.
ITIL, PMP, or other relevant credentials.

Responsibilities

Provide architectural direction and alignment across Senior Network, Systems, Storage, and Telecom Engineers to ensure domain roadmaps integrate into a cohesive enterprise infrastructure strategy.
Partner with domain engineering leads to define “what good looks like” across infrastructure capabilities, including reference architectures, standards, patterns, and lifecycle roadmaps.
Treat infrastructure capabilities as enterprise platforms, enabling reusable, scalable, secure, and standardized services across applications, data, business operations, and customer-facing capabilities.
Ensure infrastructure strategy supports enterprise growth, resilience, security, customer experience, and operational scalability.
Develop and maintain current-state, transition-state, and target-state infrastructure architecture documentation, including logical, physical, cloud, resiliency, and integration models.
Define and maintain the hybrid cloud reference architecture covering identity, networking, security, management, and resiliency across on-premises and cloud environments.
Evaluate emerging technologies (cloud, AI, automation, security tools) for adoption within the insurance environment.
Provide technical leadership across domains including cloud computing, data centers, networks, storage, virtualization, and security infrastructure.
Collaborate with platform engineering, infrastructure, security, and application teams to translate business and technical requirements into end-to-end architectural solutions.
Embed Zero Trust and identity-first design principles into all architectures, partnering closely with security and identity.
Provide architecture leadership for infrastructure modernization initiatives, including cloud migration, data center optimization, disaster recovery planning, infrastructure automation, and network transformation.
Design scalable, resilient, and secure infrastructure solutions across on-premises, cloud (AWS/Azure), and hybrid models.
Design landing zones, connectivity patterns, and shared services that enable secure and scalable adoption of cloud platforms.
Lead or support the design of workload migration strategies (rehost, re-platform, refactor) and hybrid deployment models.
Ensure solutions meet industry compliance (HIPAA, SOC2, PCI-DSS) and insurance regulatory requirements.
Assess emerging technologies and trends to identify opportunities to improve performance, reduce costs, and enhance agility.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to cloud, infrastructure, and platform engineers; help uplift skills across the team.
Produce high-quality architectural documentation, diagrams, and decision records that can be easily consumed by engineering and leadership teams.
Define architectural guardrails and operational readiness criteria to ensure transformation initiatives can be safely transitioned to RUN / XLA teams.
Provide architectural governance and direction to managed service partners where required, ensuring RUN execution remains aligned to enterprise standards, target architecture, and performance expectations.
Establish architecture standards, guardrails, reference patterns, and reusable modules expressed through Infrastructure as Code, policy-as-code, and architecture decision records.
Provide design governance for new solutions, migrations, and major changes to ensure alignment with target-state architecture, cyber expectations, operational resilience, and RUN / XLA readiness.
Drive consistency, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness across enterprise technology deployments.
Define infrastructure resiliency, disaster recovery, and technology continuity architecture patterns in partnership with Business Resilience, Cyber, and platform teams.
Act as the architecture partner to the Director of Infrastructure, supporting roadmap development, prioritization, transformation sequencing, and investment decisions.
Mentor and guide senior domain engineers in applying architecture standards, reference patterns, and target-state principles across Network, Systems, Storage, Telecom, and Cloud initiatives.
Partner with enterprise architects, security architects, and business leaders to deliver end-to-end solutions.
Act as a subject matter expert (SME) for infrastructure-related decisions during solution design and vendor evaluations.