Software Architect

NALEJ•Arlington, VA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

NALEJ is seeking a highly skilled Software Architect to serve as the lead technical design authority for large-scale, Kubernetes-native platforms operating across AWS Commercial and GovCloud environments. This individual contributor will architect secure, enterprise-grade software systems for highly regulated Department of War environments spanning Impact Levels 2 through 5. The role operates within a modern AI-native paved-road development environment. NALEJ’s architectural approach emphasizes modular, event-driven, and API-first designs that support parallel development by engineering teams and autonomous AI coding agents. The successful candidate will combine deep technical judgment with clear documentation, practical governance, and the ability to move architecture into implementation.

Requirements

Deep expertise with AWS, AWS GovCloud, Kubernetes, and Amazon EKS in production environments.
Strong experience with infrastructure as code, Crossplane, GitOps, Argo CD, Helm, container orchestration, observability, resiliency, and platform engineering patterns.
Strong architectural experience with backend services in Go and or Python using modular, API-first, event-driven, and domain-oriented patterns.
Ability to define clear service boundaries, interface contracts, integration patterns, nonfunctional requirements, and migration paths for complex systems.
Experience designing modern data platforms using components such as Apache Iceberg, Trino, Airflow, Kafka, PostgreSQL, object storage, and distributed processing patterns.
Ability to address data lifecycle, lineage, governance, access control, schema evolution, performance, reliability, and disconnected or bandwidth-constrained operations.
Experience designing zero-trust architectures and implementing controls aligned with NIST 800-53, Department of War guidance, and regulated cloud environments.
Hands-on knowledge of Istio, Keycloak, OIDC, SAML, CAC and PKI integration, Vault, policy enforcement, auditability, and secure software supply chains.
Experience designing within modern CI and CD ecosystems such as GitLab and remote developer environments such as Coder and JupyterHub.
Ability to create paved-road standards, reusable platform capabilities, and machine-readable contracts that improve developer velocity without weakening security or governance.
Must be a US Citizen
8 or more years of progressive software engineering experience, including at least three years in a dedicated software architecture role.
Proven success designing, deploying, and operating complex systems in Department of War Impact Level 2, 4, or 5 environments.
Demonstrated ability to operate autonomously as a senior individual contributor and influence technical direction without relying on formal people-management authority.
Strong written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain architecture, risks, and tradeoffs to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Ability to satisfy program-specific citizenship, background, clearance, and customer-access requirements.

Nice To Haves

Experience architecting systems for disconnected operations, tactical edge environments, intermittent connectivity, or constrained infrastructure.
Experience separating reusable open-source platform capabilities from proprietary application logic in enterprise or government systems.
Experience guiding multiple engineering teams or AI-enabled development workflows through shared architecture, contracts, and technical standards.
Relevant AWS, Kubernetes, security, or architecture certifications.

Responsibilities

Serve as the lead individual-contributor design authority for comprehensive, modular systems deployed on Kubernetes using AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service.
Architect across the full application stack, integrating high-throughput backend services in Go and Python, modern frontend applications, and complex data infrastructure.
Define secure, zero-trust platform patterns using Istio for mutual TLS and default-deny networking, Keycloak for CAC and PKI authentication and authorization, Vault for secrets management, and policy engines such as Kyverno.
Design scalable data ecosystems using open table formats such as Apache Iceberg, distributed SQL engines such as Trino, workflow orchestration such as Airflow, Kafka-based event streaming, PostgreSQL, and S3-compatible storage.
Establish declarative infrastructure and GitOps strategy using Crossplane, Argo CD, Helm, and related tooling, with clear boundaries between open-source infrastructure and custom applications.
Design stable interface contracts using REST, gRPC, and OpenAPI so systems are easily consumed, tested, and maintained by both human developers and autonomous AI agents.
Produce clear reference architectures, system diagrams, architecture decision records, interface specifications, security patterns, and implementation guidance.
Partner with engineering, cybersecurity, platform, data, product, and program stakeholders to resolve tradeoffs and ensure architecture is secure, deployable, supportable, and aligned with mission requirements.