Solutions Architect, Cloud

By joining the National Student Clearinghouse, you can be sure that the work you do now will help shape the future of education and the workforce in the U.S. As the trusted source for higher education data since 1993, the Clearinghouse is the leading provider of transcript and data exchange services, automated enrollment and degree verifications, learner insights and research, and compliance solutions for schools, businesses, and learners nationwide. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Clearinghouse works with nearly 3,600 postsecondary institutions to meet their compliance needs and with thousands of high schools and districts to provide continuing collegiate enrollment, progression, and completion statistics about their alumni. In addition, the Research Center publications inform policymakers and business leaders about student educational pathways. Using our unique combination of data, analytics, and software to drive our mission, security and privacy is paramount. Join us as we continue to invest in our talent and new advanced technologies to unlock the power of data on behalf of all learners. ## About the Role: The Solutions Architect plays a critical role in the Clearinghouse's major modernization initiative to re engineer and re platform mission critical applications. This position is responsible for designing application systems that support multiple lines of business, identifying technical componentsincluding open source tools and SaaS solutionsthat align with the organization's strategy for building loosely coupled, scalable applications. The role focuses on leveraging emerging technologies and architectural best practices to improve customer experience, increase operational efficiency, and strengthen competitive advantage. Working collaboratively across the federated architecture team, application development teams, infrastructure, the PMO, business units, the Chief Data Office (CDO), and external partners, the Solutions Architect develops proofs of concept, prototypes, and technical validations to support strategic decision making. The ideal candidate brings experience operating in a transformative environment and excels at rapidly evaluating and validating complex technical concepts using a variety of approaches. Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required. ## How You Contribute: - Demonstrate the Clearinghouse's core competencies: Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic. - Develop current and future state architectures that advance customer experience, organizational excellence, and brand growth. Make recommendations regarding strategic architectural considerations related to technology direction and standards. - Develop an understanding of the business modelincluding processes, application architectures, and supporting systemsto define and design solutions that work within the enterprise environment and satisfy business requirements. - Develop design artifacts that describe the structure, characteristics, behavior, workflow, and other aspects of the solution to project stakeholders. - Understand all aspects of project constraints including scope, schedule, budget, quality, cost, risk, and resources. Recommend and make technological and managerial decisions to reconcile these constraints with project goals. - Present design solutions to the Architecture Review Board (ARB) for approval. Collaborate with stakeholders, application development teams, and ARB members to develop and refine application designs prior to presenting to the ARB. - Investigate new solutions us ng custom-developed software, commercial software, and open source software. - Develop platform technology roadmaps, including SaaS, PaaS, custom software, third party offerings, open source components, and other technology solutions. - Define strategies and architectures for application modernization and cloud migration, including refactoring, replatforming, and adoption of cloud native patterns. - Ensure a loosely coupled, scalable architecture through effective design and governance of service interfaces and modular components, and establish standards for internal and external integrations. - Work independently or collaboratively to prototype and validate architectural approaches and reduce delivery risk. - Embed security by design principles into solution architectures and adapt designs to evolving security, risk, and compliance requirements. - Contribute to the definition and evolution of application and architecture standards and design patterns, and actively participate in architecture governance and ARB processes. Position may be required to perform other duties as required. These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions. ## What You Bring to the Table: Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field. A combination of education and experience including military service will also be considered. 10 years of software development experience in mid to large organizations, and technical leadership experience. 5 years of experience defining architectures, including current state, future state and enterprise technology roadmaps, working with commercial, open source, and cloud solutions including developing prototypes and integration models. Experience: - Demonstrated experience applying enterprise architecture standards and patterns, including microservices, event driven architectures, API led integration, cloud native design, and non functional architecture patterns for security, scalability, and resiliency. - Strong hands on knowledge of AWS cloud services and open source technologies, including compute, integration, data, security, DevSecOps, and observability platforms used to deliver secure, scalable, cloud native solutions. - Deep understanding of container orchestration patterns (Kubernetes/EKS, ECS/Fargate), including deployment, scaling, resiliency, and service to service communication. - Exposure to enterprise scale data processing and analytics platforms, including big data technologies (e.g., EMR), Data Lake, Lakehouse, or analytical solutions. - Experience designing high availability, disaster recovery, security, and observability in cloud environments. - Experience establishing platform standards and reference architectures for cloud and container based solutions. - Experience applying OWASP security best practices and Section 508 accessibility compliance in enterprise application and cloud solution designs. - Experience designing authentication and authorization solutions using industry standard protocols such as OAuth 2.0, SAML, and OpenID Connect (OIDC), with role based access control (RBAC) to enforce least privilege access across applications and services. Proficiency creating logical/physical/functional views, process flow diagrams, and system integr