Principal Infrastructure Solutions Architect

Location: Fort Washington, MD; Tampa, FL

Department: 54589947 - AFS Cloud Platform Engineering

About the Role:
AFS is seeking a Principal Infrastructure Solutions Architect to lead the design, build, and automation of our cutting-edge cloud infrastructure in a DevSecOps environments. The ideal candidate is passionate about building secure, scalable, and highly available platforms to meet business needs.

As a senior-level expert in Cloud & DevSecOps, your deep knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Kubernetes for container orchestration, and CI/CD pipelines will be instrumental in enabling our development teams to leverage a powerful, secure, and scalable self-service cloud platform.

Responsibilities:

• AWS Infrastructure & Architecture:
• Design, build, and maintain scalable, resilient, and secure environments primarily within AWS using frameworks such as the Well-Architected framework.
• Implement and manage core AWS services, including networking (VPC, Transit Gateway, Route53), compute (EC2, Lambda), storage (S3, EBS), and databases (RDS).
• Architect and operate containerized workloads using Kubernetes, including cluster management, scaling, and security.
• Implement AWS IAM, creating and managing roles, policies, and permissions based on the principle of least privilege.
• Design immutable infrastructure
• DevSecOps & Automation:
• Champion and implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform to automate cloud resource provisioning and management.
• Develop, manage, and optimize robust CI/CD pipelines to enable rapid and reliable software delivery, integrate security best practices directly into the platform and pipelines.
• Develop custom automation scripts and tooling (e.g., using Python, Go, or Bash) to streamline operations and eliminate manual processes, heavily focusing on the usage of API’s.
• Team Enablement & Collaboration:
• Act as a subject matter expert, providing guidance and support to development teams to optimize their use of the platform.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to evaluate new cloud-native technologies and recommend solutions that enhance efficiency and capability.
• Champion foundational best practices, including Git workflows and the proficient use of AI tools to accelerate development and problem-solving.

• Divide big projects into manageable tasks for junior staff.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Must possess and maintain required DoD 8570/8140 certifications.
• 8 years of experience in any of the following and a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline or equivalent professional experience:
• Advanced-level proficiency with Infrastructure as Code, with strong hands-on experience in Terraform or other languages, to include advanced usage such as targeted applies, imports and more.
• Deep experience with container orchestration, specifically in kubernetes and docker.
• Strong command of AWS IAM roles, policies, and security best practices.
• Proven experience designing, building, and maintaining automated CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, AWS CodePipeline).
• Solid understanding of cloud networking, Linux/Unix administration, and security principles.
• Proficiency with Git and modern GitOps workflows.
• Hybrid role, 60% onsite

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with configuration management tools like Ansible.
• Familiarity with other public clouds (Azure, GCP).
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Python, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript).
• Understanding of common authentication mechanisms, OIDC, OAuth2, LDAP, SAML.
• Experience contributing to open-source projects.
• One or more of the following certifications:
• AWS Solutions Architect - Professional
• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate/Professional
• Security+

Clearance:

• Can start with an active Secret clearance , must be willing to obtain TS/SCI