System Architect – SME, Storage

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Provide senior technical leadership for enterprise infrastructure architecture and modernization in support of the SEC ISS contract.

• Convert mission and functional requirements into scalable, secure technical solutions across on-premises and hybrid/multi-cloud environments.

• Lead cross-functional engineering and operations teams to enhance reliability, automation, and service performance in line with SEC OIT objectives.

• Drive technology evaluations, proofs of concept, pilots, and demonstrations.

• Ensure designs are compatible with 24x7x365 enterprise operations and observability requirements.

• Align architectural decisions with Zero Trust, FISMA, and SEC governance standards.

• Architect and manage enterprise IT systems across server, platform, storage, and cloud domains.

• Define target-state designs, transitional architectures, integration patterns, implementation roadmaps, standards, and technical decision documentation.

• Design, implement, and maintain enterprise SAN/NAS and storage virtualization solutions.

• Develop storage strategies, standards, and policies that comply with organizational and federal regulations.

• Lead storage migrations, upgrades, technology refreshes, and cloud/on-premises integrations with minimal operational disruption.

• Engineer storage platforms for high availability, data integrity, and scalability across SEC environments.

• Identify, evaluate, and recommend technologies; lead POCs, pilots, and demonstrations to assess feasibility, risk, and operational fit.

• Guide modernization efforts in virtualization, cloud integration, and enterprise infrastructure transformation initiatives.

• Provide technical leadership to multi-disciplinary server and system operations teams.

• Establish requirements for monitoring, alerting, incident response, and operational visibility.

• Support root-cause analysis, corrective actions, continuous improvement, SLA, and performance targets.

• Ensure designs facilitate 24x7x365 operations, including change/release coordination and lifecycle management.

• Collaborate with infrastructure, network, security, virtualization, and cloud teams to integrate storage services end-to-end.

• Conduct risk assessments and recommend remediation strategies for storage resilience, security, and operational risk.

• Mentor junior engineers and serve as a storage Subject Matter Expert (SME) for incident response, strategic planning, and continuous improvement.

• Administer and optimize large-scale enterprise storage environments through proactive monitoring and health management.

• Conduct capacity planning and forecasting to ensure service continuity and prevent resource constraints.

• Troubleshoot advanced storage incidents related to latency, throughput, replication, and platform stability.

• Establish and monitor operational metrics and trend analysis for service-level performance.

• Integrate security controls and compliance requirements into infrastructure and platform designs.

• Support FISMA-aligned controls, vulnerability remediation, secure configuration baselines, and SEC governance.

• Architect and maintain enterprise backup and recovery strategies.

• Implement and validate disaster recovery and business continuity storage controls, including cross-site replication and recovery readiness.

• Ensure retention, recovery, and data protection practices comply with organizational policy and federal regulations.

• Support audit readiness through storage documentation, configuration baselines, and implementation evidence.

⛳️ Requirements

• Must satisfy contract citizenship/work authorization criteria.

• Ability to obtain and maintain SEC Public Trust (or a higher level if required).

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline.

• 12+ years of experience in engineering and architecting enterprise IT storage systems.

• Proven experience managing multi-disciplinary server and system operations teams.

• Demonstrated ability to translate functional requirements into enterprise technical solutions and lead integration/scalability initiatives.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, with effective collaboration across cross-functional teams.

• Hands-on experience with enterprise storage platforms and large-scale storage administration.

• Expertise in SAN/NAS technologies, storage virtualization, and enterprise backup/recovery solutions.

• Experience leading complex storage migrations, upgrades, and integrations with cloud and on-premises environments.

• Familiarity with supporting storage compliance, audit readiness, and documentation in federal IT contexts.

• Advanced skills in storage performance optimization, capacity planning, risk assessment, and disaster recovery strategies.

• Must have experience with Clustered Data ONTAP software.

• Experience in enterprise infrastructure design and architecture.

• Proficient with multi-vendor server operating systems.

• Experience in virtualization and cloud integration architecture.

• Experience with system integration and scalability architecture.

• Knowledge of security architecture for enterprise platforms.

• Experience in technology evaluation, POC/pilot execution, and solution validation.

• Skilled in cross-functional technical leadership and stakeholder communication.

• Experience with cross-functional integration involving infrastructure, network, and security teams.

• Proficient with enterprise SAN/NAS platforms and storage virtualization.

• Experience with enterprise backup/recovery, replication, and disaster recovery operations.

• Experienced in storage performance monitoring, tuning, and capacity management methodologies.

• Skilled in troubleshooting advanced mission-critical storage issues and operational risk assessment.

• Preferred: experience in U.S. federal IT environments with FISMA/NIST/OMB compliance requirements.

• Preferred: experience in architecting or supporting observability platforms and enterprise monitoring integrations in large-scale environments.

• Preferred: hands-on experience with container platforms and automation frameworks such as OpenShift, Kubernetes, Ansible, and GitOps toolchains.

• Preferred: experience leading architectural initiatives in 24x7x365 enterprise operations organizations.

• Preferred: previous support to SEC or similarly regulated financial-sector federal agencies.

• Preferred: NetApp Certified Data Administrator Certification (NCDA) or equivalent.

• Preferred: proficiency in Ansible, Python, and BASH.

• Preferred: experience in developing and enforcing storage standards, policies, and operational best practices.

🏝️ Benefits

• Remote / Telework options available.

• Potential involvement in on-call or surge support activities based on operational needs.