Senior Principal Cloud Architect

Nightwing•Sterling, VA

20h•$122,000 - $253,000

About The Position

Nightwing provides technically advanced full-spectrum cyber, data operations, systems integration and intelligence mission support services to meet our customers’ most demanding challenges. Our capabilities include cyber space operations, cyber defense and resiliency, vulnerability research, ubiquitous technical surveillance, data intelligence, lifecycle mission enablement, and software modernization. Nightwing brings disruptive technologies, agility, and competitive offerings to customers in the intelligence community, defense, civil, and commercial markets. Cloud Architect – AWS GovCloud Development Environment Position Overview We are seeking an experienced Cloud Solutions Architect to lead a critical program effort to establish a unified software development environment in AWS GovCloud and migrate existing separate development networks into a single, common development environment. This role focuses on designing scalable, secure, and high-performance cloud architectures that consolidate disparate development infrastructures while maintaining the rigor, consistency, and reliability required for mission-critical operations. The ideal candidate fundamentally favors automated, repeatable workflows over repetitive manual operational tasks, trusting mature automated resources to deploy systems more accurately and consistently than manual deployment.

Requirements

U.S. Citizenship
Active TS/SCI clearance
8+ years of directly relevant experience
5+ years of experience designing cloud architectures, preferably on AWS
Strong expertise in AWS services including EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, Lambda, and CloudFormation
Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, etc.)
Deep understanding of cloud security best practices and compliance requirements
Proven ability to design scalable, resilient, and cost-effective solutions
Demonstrated experience leading migration and consolidation of multiple networks or environments
Proven leadership skills and meaningful experience successfully leading teams
Experience working in an Agile development environment
Strong documentation and technical communication skills
Experience with automation and scripting (Python, Bash, PowerShell)
Working networking knowledge — network infrastructure, protocols, TLS encryption, and VPC firewall management

Nice To Haves

Prior experience working in AWS GovCloud environments
Experience designing solutions for cybersecurity or incident response operations
Knowledge of multi-cloud or hybrid cloud architectures
Experience with container orchestration (Kubernetes, ECS)
Experience and familiarity with the Risk Management Framework (RMF) and security and privacy controls (NIST 800-37 and NIST 800-53)
Background in systems engineering, system administration, or DevOps
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and automation

Responsibilities

Lead the design and architecture of a consolidated, maintainable cloud development environment in AWS GovCloud aligned with program and mission requirements
Plan and execute the migration of our separate development networks into a single, unified development environment
Develop automation frameworks and infrastructure-as-code templates to streamline provisioning, deployment, and network consolidation
Provide systems engineering project leadership in support of a large, leading-edge development effort
Interface directly with the customer, stakeholders, and end-users regarding priorities, capability architectures, requirements, and use cases to derive and decompose migration specifications
Implement security controls including encryption, hardened configurations, and compliance safeguards appropriate for a classified environment
Collaborate with DevOps engineers to enhance CI/CD pipelines within the consolidated environment
Support risk assessments and develop risk mitigation countermeasures during network migration and consolidation
Conduct architecture reviews and provide technical guidance to implementation teams
Evaluate and recommend new cloud services and technologies to improve operational capabilities
Support troubleshooting of complex architectural issues during migration and active operations