Cloud Architect

Overview

REI Systems’ mission is to deliver reliable, innovative technology solutions that advance Federal clients' missions and exceed their expectations. Our technologists and consultants are passionate about solving complex challenges that impact millions of lives. We take a Mindful Modernization® approach in delivering our services, including application modernization, grants management, case management systems, government data analytics, and advisory services. This approach, the REI Way, ensures mission impact by aligning our clients' strategic objectives with measurable outcomes through people, processes, and technology. We offer the same commitment to our employees by providing professional development, meaningful projects, and flexibility to spend time with family and friends. We believe employees are at their best when fulfilled in both their professional careers and their personal lives. Learn more at www.REIsystems.com. Employees voted REI Systems a Washington Post Top Workplace in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025!

Responsibilities

REI Systems is seeking an experienced Cloud Architect to lead the design, modernization, and technical evolution of secure, scalable, and highly available cloud solutions supporting mission-critical FDA applications and services.

The Cloud Architect will provide technical leadership across cloud architecture, application modernization, DevSecOps, security, infrastructure automation, cloud-native technologies, and emerging AI-enabled capabilities. This individual will work closely with application development, infrastructure, cybersecurity, DevOps, data, and program teams to establish cloud architecture standards and ensure solutions align with FDA mission, security, scalability, reliability, and performance requirements.

The ideal candidate brings deep AWS expertise, strong enterprise architecture experience, and the ability to translate business and technical requirements into practical cloud solutions.

Cloud Architecture & Strategy

• Lead the design and implementation of secure, scalable, resilient, and cost-effective cloud architectures supporting enterprise FDA applications.

• Define target-state cloud architectures, modernization roadmaps, architecture patterns, and technical standards.

• Evaluate existing systems and recommend cloud modernization, migration, re-platforming, refactoring, or cloud-native transformation strategies.

• Design solutions across compute, storage, networking, identity and access management, databases, integration, containers, serverless technologies, and managed cloud services.

• Ensure architecture decisions support high availability, scalability, disaster recovery, performance, security, and operational resilience.

• Develop architecture diagrams, solution designs, technical documentation, standards, and reusable reference architectures.

AWS & Cloud-Native Engineering

• Architect enterprise solutions using AWS services and cloud-native technologies.

• Design solutions using services such as EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, ECS/EKS, API Gateway, CloudFront, Route 53, IAM, CloudWatch, and related AWS capabilities.

• Architect containerized and microservices-based platforms using technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.

• Design secure cloud networking architectures including VPCs, subnets, routing, load balancing, private connectivity, DNS, and security controls.

• Establish patterns for highly available and fault-tolerant cloud applications.

• Support hybrid-cloud and multi-environment architectures across development, testing, staging, and production.

Application Modernization

• Partner with application teams to modernize legacy and enterprise systems for cloud-native deployment.

• Define architectural patterns for microservices, APIs, event-driven architectures, containerization, and serverless solutions.

• Assess application dependencies, performance requirements, security needs, and technical constraints as part of modernization initiatives.

• Provide guidance on application decomposition, platform selection, and migration strategies.

• Ensure modernization efforts balance technical innovation, operational supportability, security, and cost.

DevSecOps & Infrastructure Automation

• Establish architecture standards for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, or similar technologies.

• Partner with DevSecOps teams to design automated CI/CD and infrastructure deployment patterns.

• Promote automated provisioning, configuration management, testing, deployment, monitoring, and security controls.

• Develop reusable cloud templates and architecture patterns to improve consistency and delivery speed.

• Incorporate security and compliance requirements into cloud architecture and automation frameworks.

• Support Git-based workflows, automated deployments, and modern DevSecOps engineering practices.

Cloud Security & Federal Compliance

• Design cloud solutions in alignment with FDA, HHS, Federal, and organizational cybersecurity requirements.

• Apply security-by-design principles across cloud infrastructure, applications, data, identities, APIs, and network architectures.

• Work closely with cybersecurity teams to support compliance with applicable NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, Zero Trust, and Federal security controls.

• Architect identity and access management, encryption, logging, auditing, network segmentation, and security monitoring capabilities.

• Support security assessments, remediation activities, technical reviews, and authorization processes.

• Ensure cloud architecture supports vulnerability management, patching, configuration management, and continuous monitoring.

AI & Generative AI Architecture

• Design secure and scalable cloud architectures capable of supporting AI, Generative AI, machine learning, and intelligent automation workloads.

• Evaluate appropriate cloud services and architecture patterns for AI-enabled applications, including services such as Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, and related AWS AI capabilities, where applicable.

• Define secure integration patterns between enterprise applications, data platforms, APIs, and AI services.

• Ensure AI solutions address security, privacy, data governance, scalability, performance, and Federal compliance requirements.

• Partner with AI, data, and application teams to establish reusable cloud architecture patterns for AI-enabled solutions.

• Evaluate opportunities to leverage AI and AIOps for cloud monitoring, anomaly detection, capacity management, incident analysis, optimization, and operational efficiency.

• Provide architectural guidance for responsible and secure adoption of AI technologies within Federal environments.

Reliability, Performance & Cost Optimization

• Design cloud environments to support high availability, resiliency, disaster recovery, and business continuity requirements.

• Define monitoring, logging, observability, and performance-management architecture.

• Establish architecture patterns for capacity planning, scaling, and system performance optimization.

• Identify opportunities to optimize cloud consumption and improve cost efficiency through appropriate architecture and service selection.

• Apply FinOps principles and cloud cost-management best practices where applicable.

• Support root-cause analysis and architectural remediation for complex production or performance issues.

Architecture Governance & Technical Leadership

• Serve as a senior technical advisor and escalation point for cloud architecture and modernization initiatives.

• Lead architecture reviews, design sessions, technical assessments, and proof-of-concept activities.

• Provide architectural guidance to application developers, DevOps engineers, infrastructure engineers, cybersecurity teams, and technical leads.

• Establish and promote cloud architecture principles, standards, reusable patterns, and engineering best practices.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend appropriate adoption strategies.

• Communicate architecture decisions, risks, technical tradeoffs, dependencies, and recommendations to both technical and program leadership.

• Mentor technical team members and promote strong cloud engineering and architecture practices.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in cloud engineering, infrastructure, systems architecture, software architecture, or related technical disciplines.

• Demonstrated experience designing enterprise-scale cloud solutions.

• Strong hands-on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

• Strong understanding of AWS networking, compute, storage, identity, security, monitoring, and managed services.

• Experience designing cloud-native, microservices, containerized, and distributed architectures.

• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and preferably Amazon EKS.

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code technologies such as Terraform or CloudFormation.

• Strong understanding of CI/CD and DevSecOps practices.

• Experience designing secure cloud networking and IAM architectures.

• Understanding of application modernization, APIs, integration, and enterprise application architecture.

• Experience with cloud monitoring, observability, logging, and performance-management solutions.

• Strong understanding of high availability, disaster recovery, scalability, and resiliency.

• Experience working with enterprise cybersecurity and compliance requirements.

• Strong analytical, architecture, troubleshooting, documentation, communication, and leadership skills.

• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting FDA, HHS, or other Federal Government programs.

• Experience architecting solutions in Federal cloud environments.

• Knowledge of NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, Zero Trust, and Federal security frameworks.

• AWS certification such as:

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer

• AWS Certified Security – Specialty

• Experience with Amazon EKS, ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, S3, CloudFront, Route 53, and related AWS technologies.

• Experience with enterprise Kubernetes platforms such as OpenShift.

• Experience with API management, event-driven architectures, microservices, and integration platforms.

• Experience with FinOps and cloud cost optimization.

• Experience with Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, Generative AI, machine learning platforms, or AI-enabled enterprise solutions.

• Knowledge of AIOps and AI-assisted infrastructure or cloud operations.

• Experience leading enterprise cloud modernization or migration initiatives.

Educational Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Operations Management, or related field.

Clearance: Eligible to obtain a public trust clearance.

Location: Hybrid (2 days per week or as needed in the REI Sterling Office)

EEO Statement: REI Systems is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In our workplace, we seek, we welcome, and respect diversity in all of its forms.

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-TK1