The Sr Cloud Architect position is a leadership position in the organization that is responsible for managing multiple consulting and delivery projects, teams/programs. The Sr Architect, provides consulting and delivery assurance of services for clients through a range of internal and external functions. The position of Sr. CloudArchitect is distinguished from Cloud Architect positions by the nature of the engagements or programs involved; deal sizes range from transactional solutions of £2-5M. As a Sr. Cloud Architect, the architect, is expected to have the experience and background to perform all the duties described below for engagements that are focused on consulting/delivery management within the defined subject matter area, including resource management, deliverables development, project planning and executions, adherence to contract attributes and costing, customer interaction, and other key aspects of solution-based managed services.
For a Sr Cloud Architect, these engagements will typically be delivered for a European customer or at the customer location, usually Europe based. They are expected to have adequate level skills required for complex deliverable-based, fully outsourced, or extremely large-scale engagements or programs and lead the delivery effort to a larger cross-functional project/program. This role may require up to 50% travel.
The ideal candidate will bring their deep expertise in Cloud Services primarily on AWS, Microservices and Serverless architectures, Cloud Native Development, CI/CD and DevOps, presales, delivery, and operational excellence. They will provide expert level support for strategic ongoing and new TGS client initiatives. They will work amongst our other key partners to assist in the development of robust cloud offerings and bring holistic solutions across key focus areas of TGS Enterprise Modernization strategic objectives.
Additional responsibilities will include but not be limited to:
Provide leadership, expertise, and support for DevOps and Cloud engagements through a range of internal and external functions in the following areas:
Engagement Support
: provide support of newly won deals through the transition and delivery phases while partnering with the Delivery organization to ensure projects are started and delivered according to the Enterprise Modernization's portfolio guidelines
Engagement Delivery
: drive the transition phase as well as the setup of the engagement operating model, help define metrics and support the delivery for defined statement of work. Help identify opportunities for service improvements
Practice Support
: provide input, expertise, and implement changes into the design, development and improvement of service offerings and back-office procedures; assist in the research and development of new offerings and analyze competing offerings to ensure practice is current and competitive within the market; create and maintain practice artifacts that document key methods, processes and delivery tools
Human Resources
: assist with interviewing, hiring, and on-boarding of project team members during initial engagement phase
Pre-Sales Support
: as required, support Solution Architects and Solution Executives with technical opinions, methodology recommendations, work estimates, and solution support
Engagement Delivery Support Responsibilities
* Partner with our Delivery organization to ensure project initiation and transition phase is executed according to the Enterprise Modernization portfolio guidelines and that the assigned Delivery Manager/Service Manager is provided the knowledge required to deliver the engagement effectively
* Facilitate internal communication and assembling a solution delivery team for new engagements
* Provide solution consulting and advice during the initiation and transition phases to the Delivery Manager as needed
* Attend project kick-off meetings, status reviews, and other delivery meetings as requested by the Delivery Manager
* Ensure engagement methodology is followed by team from opportunity assessment to project closeout
* Develop collaborative relationship with the Delivery team to support the organization from a delivery perspective
* Help define the team's performance metrics in alignment to customers KPIs and OKRs
* Identify opportunities for service improvement through problem management, service optimization, automation, etc.
Pre-Sales Support
* Work with Solution Architects and Solution Executives, when needed, to develop scope, prepare estimates, prepare implementation plans, and ensure project risks are assessed during sales cycle for project services and outsource engagements
* As needed, understand client business and technical requirements and communicate internally with Solution Architects and Solution Executives to ensure solution matches client needs
* As needed, support Solution Architects and Solution Executives in process to calculate risk premium, prepare and review estimates, and prepare project pricing
Practice Support
* Collect and provide input into the design, development and improvement of service offerings and internal DevOps and Cloud accelerator programs
* Implement service offering changes in process and procedures
* Maintain and organize Enterprise Modernization portfolio intellectual property
* Work with Managers and Director to improve and implement changes to project delivery processes, methodology, and back office procedures
* Stay informed with regards to developments in the application management industry and maintain current knowledge of the generally accepted best practices in service transition and management
Minimum Qualifications:
* Bachelor's in Computer Science or other engineering or technical discipline is required
* 9+ years' experience in information technology and/or professional services, with emphasis on subject matter expertise
* At least 5 years of experience as a Cloud Architect or equivalent role
* At least 5 years of AWS services experience is required.
* At least 3 years of cloud migration experience is required
* At least 3 years of Microservices and Serverless experience is required
* Hands on knowledge in various AWS services like VPC, Lambda, Event Bridge, S3, DynamoDB, System Manager, API Gateway, ACM, Route53, Cloud Watch etc
* Experience with strategizing and solution migration of legacy enterprise app (Lift & Shift/ Code Refactoring)
* Experience with source code and software collaboration technologies (e.g. GitHub, BitBucket, Artifactory)
* Experience configuring and managing continuous integration servers (e.g. GitHb Actions, Jenkins, Bamboo, TeamCity, Travis CI, Circle CI,Tekton)
* Strong scripting skills (e.g. CLI, Go,Python, Bash, Groovy)
* Good knowledge on programming languages like C#, Java and Web APIs
* Knowledge of IP networking, VPN's, DNS, load balancing and firewalling
* Strong practical Linux (RHEL) and Windows-based systems administration skills in a Cloud or Virtualized environment
* Develop innovative solutions to complex business and technology problems
* Ability to travel to client locations to deliver professional services, as needed
* Candidate must have proven subject matter expertise with AWS services at an architecture level
* Remotely work with team members across a range of time zones and regions.
* Able to present designs to a varied audience across technical and non-technical stakeholders
* Ability to identify and address potential design or architecture issues, and work with uncertainty
* Willing to lead discussion and challenge technical and design decisions where standards or best practices are not met
* Implement central architecture standards, using JIRA, confluence etc. raising and tracking architecture tasks, dependencies and risks for 2-3 inflight projects they are assigned to
Desired Qualifications
* Master's in Computer Science or other engineering or technical discipline is required
* 12+ years' experience in information technology and/or professional services, with emphasis on subject matter expertise
* 8+ years of Cloud Architecture experience
* 8+ years of AWS experiece
* At least 5 years cloud migration experience
* At least 5 years of Microservices and serverless experience
* Hands on knowledge in various AWS services like VPC, Lambda, Event Bridge, S3, DynamoDB, System Manager, API Gateway, ACM, Route53, Cloud Watch etc
* Strong track record of delivering projects of demonstrable complexity & scale
* Prior success in automating real-world production environments using Chef, Puppet, Salt, Ansible or cloud native equivalents
* Ability to lead adoption and mentor team members on modern DevOps and architectural concepts
* Proficient designing and building highly available, resilient large-scale distributed systems
* Demonstrated leadership abilities in an engineering environment in driving operational excellence and best practices
* Demonstrated ability to achieve stretch goals in a highly innovative and fast paced environment
* Candidate must have subject matter expertise with the following Cloud Service Providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Experience with GCP plus)
* Expertise in DevOps Technologies including but not limited to CI/CD frameworks, Infrastructure as Code and monitoring and logging frameworks
* Strong Knowledge in container technologies like Docker, Kubernetes and cloud native frameworks
* Excellence in technical communication with peers and non-technical cohorts
* Sharp analytical abilities and proven design skills
* Strong sense of ownership, urgency and drive
* Outstanding written and verbal communication skills with an emphasis on communicating technical requirements and solutions to internal and external audiences.
Certifications
* Candidate must have professional level certifications in either AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and/or Red Hat OpenShift
* AWS cloud preferred professional level certifications