Senior Technical Architect, Infrastructure and Cloud

ServiceNow•Chicago, IL

1h•$171,900 - $300,800

About The Position

The Senior Technical Architect, Infrastructure and Cloud sets direction for the evolution of corporate and cloud infrastructure to support secure, reliable, scalable, and cost-effective business services. As a senior individual contributor on the technical architecture team, the role connects infrastructure and cloud decisions to enterprise architecture and the broader technology roadmap. It researches emerging technologies, advises on existing solutions, and drives improvements such as upgrades, retirements, and replacements. The role establishes standards, roadmaps, guardrails, and architecture decisions; it does not run day-to-day operations or build infrastructure. The scope includes architecture for technology outside the ServiceNow platform: data centers, public and hybrid cloud, compute, storage, networking and connectivity, backup and recovery, and infrastructure dependencies of corporate systems. Other teams retain ownership of the systems they operate. The role does not cover ServiceNow platform instance architecture or configuration, AI and data architecture, or enterprise security architecture, but supports infrastructure for AI and data workloads and partners closely with Security Architecture. The role defines current-, transition-, and target-state architecture and multiyear roadmaps; establishes reference architectures, principles, standards, and patterns; and advises on cloud governance for Azure and GCP. It leads architecture reviews, evaluates options and vendors, and helps stakeholders make decisions based on tradeoffs, risk, value, operability, and total cost. It recommends resilience and compliance requirements and considers emerging AI/ML infrastructure needs. The architect collaborates with technology, finance, and operations teams, represents infrastructure and cloud in governance forums including the Architecture Review Board, and mentors architects and engineers.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive experience in infrastructure, cloud, platform engineering, or systems engineering, including substantial architecture responsibility for complex enterprise environments.
Demonstrated success defining infrastructure and cloud strategy and roadmaps spanning multiple technology domains and delivery teams.
Deep expertise in several infrastructure domains and sufficient breadth to make integrated decisions across cloud, network, compute, storage, resilience, and cost.
Strong working knowledge of Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) architecture, including landing zones, connectivity, identity dependencies, workload placement, and shared-responsibility models.
Solid understanding of agentic AI concepts and patterns, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agent-to-agent (A2A) communication, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and related technologies.
Experience integrating disparate systems and strong understanding of enterprise integration patterns such as APIs, messaging, and event-driven architecture.
Experience defining cloud governance, guardrails, and standards in a large enterprise and getting teams to adopt them.
Experience creating and governing reference architectures, standards, and architecture decision records.
Working knowledge of infrastructure as code and modern automation practices.
Ability to evaluate architecture choices based on business value, risk, cost, and operational evidence rather than technology preference.
Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and technical teams without relying on direct authority.
Clear written and verbal communication for engineering and executive audiences.
Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a large, global, regulated, or mission-critical environment.
Familiarity with IT service management practices, including ITIL, and with CMDB alignment for infrastructure configuration items.
Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or COBIT, or equivalent.
Experience with release planning using Agile and Scrum practices.
Familiarity with AI and ML infrastructure requirements, such as GPU and accelerator capacity, and with zero-trust architecture.
Experience with FinOps, technology portfolio management, and infrastructure cost modeling.
Relevant architecture, cloud, networking, security, or infrastructure certifications.
Experience guiding vendor strategy or major platform selection.

Responsibilities

Define current-state, transition-state, and target-state infrastructure and cloud architecture, including a multiyear roadmap tied to business priorities, risk, lifecycle, capacity, and cost.
Align infrastructure direction with enterprise architecture principles and the broader technology roadmap, and surface dependencies affecting enterprise plans.
Establish reference architectures, principles, standards, and patterns across cloud, data center, networking, compute, storage, containers, and backup.
Advise on infrastructure as code and policy as code, and support delivery teams in adopting them.
Define cloud governance, standards, and architectural guardrails for Azure and GCP, including account and subscription structures, landing zones, cost controls, and policy as code.
Lead infrastructure architecture reviews and provide architecture input on major technical decisions.
Help scope proofs of concept and vendor evaluations; evaluate options and document tradeoffs, risks, value, fit, operability, and total cost; help drive decisions to closure with accountable stakeholders.
Recommend resilience and compliance requirements for high availability, disaster recovery, backup and recovery, and continuity, aligning recovery objectives with business criticality.
Partner with Security Architecture on resilience, compliance, and zero-trust requirements so they are incorporated into infrastructure and cloud standards.
Assess future AI and ML infrastructure needs, including compute capacity, specialized hardware, data storage, and hybrid hosting; understand infrastructure implications of RAG, A2A, and MCP patterns.
Research emerging technologies that could change infrastructure design and operations, and advise on adoption.
Prefer out-of-the-box capabilities; recommend documenting the case for custom patterns or exceptions and advise on retiring custom solutions when standard capabilities suffice.
Collaborate with DT Integration, Core Systems, and Product teams to align infrastructure needs, dependencies, and roadmaps, and advise on infrastructure implications of their decisions.
Partner with finance and operations on infrastructure economics through capacity planning, lifecycle management, workload placement, and FinOps practices.
Use incidents, capacity trends, audit findings, and resilience test results to inform standards and roadmaps.
Represent infrastructure and cloud in the architecture team and governance forums, including the Architecture Review Board.
Build relationships with senior technology and business leaders, and mentor architects and engineers.