Associate Architect - DevOps & Cloud

Job Summary

We are looking for a seasoned Associate Architect with 68 years of experience in DevOps and cloud technologies, primarily on AWS. The ideal candidate will combine strong technical expertise with consulting, client engagement, and pre-sales capabilities. This role requires ownership of solution architecture, team building, stakeholder management, and driving end-to-end delivery for enterprise clients, especially in regulated industries.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead solution architecture and design for cloud-native and DevOps transformations on AWS.
• Act as a trusted advisor to clients, driving technical discussions, architecture decisions, and solution positioning.
• Engage in pre-sales activities including requirement analysis, solution design, estimations, and technical proposals.
• Handle customer conversations effectively, including negotiations on scope, timelines, and delivery commitments.
• Build and mentor high-performing DevOps teams, ensuring strong engineering practices and delivery excellence.
• Define and enforce best practices for CI/CD, IaC, security, and release management.
• Design solutions aligned with regulatory and compliance requirements for BFSI and healthcare clients.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across business, security, and engineering teams.
• Drive governance, risk management, and operational excellence across Skills and Expertise :
• Cloud & AWS Architecture :

i. Strong expertise in AWS services including EC2, ECS, EKS, RDS, OpenSearch, DynamoDB, and DocumentDB.

ii. Deep understanding of IAM, SSO, and fine-grained access control mechanisms.

iii. Experience designing highly available, fault-tolerant, and cost-optimized architectures.

• Advanced Networking Architecture :

i. Strong expertise in AWS networking including VPC design, Transit Gateway, VPC Peering, PrivateLink, and hybrid connectivity.

ii. Experience with AWS Direct Connect for secure on-premises to cloud connectivity.

iii. Ability to design three-tier architectures (web, app, database layers).

iv. Experience designing DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) architectures for secure external access.

v. Strong understanding of North-South traffic (ingress/egress) and East-West traffic (inter-service communication).

vi. Experience in implementing traffic inspection, monitoring, and segmentation strategies.

• DevOps & Cloud Native :

i. Extensive experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration.

ii. Strong understanding of Kubernetes concepts including Ingress, Gateway API, service discovery, and scaling.

iii. Experience with service mesh technologies such as Istio or Linkerd for traffic management and security.

iv. Hands-on experience with CNCF tools such as Helm, Argo CD, Flux, Prometheus, and Grafana.

v. Experience with Karpenter or cluster autoscaling mechanisms.

• Infrastructure as Code & Automation :

i. Expertise in Terraform or AWS CloudFormation for scalable infrastructure provisioning.

ii. Strong scripting skills using Python, Bash, or similar.

• Security, Compliance & Governance :

i. Strong knowledge of AWS security services such as GuardDuty, Security Hub, WAF, Shield, and KMS.

ii. Hands-on experience implementing compliance frameworks and standards including :

• DPDP (Digital Personal Data Protection Act India)
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
• RBI guidelines (for BFSI compliance)
• ISO standards (ISO 27001, ISO 22301)
• SOC 2 compliance
• SEBI regulations (where applicable)

iii. Experience designing secure architectures with encryption, key management, identity federation, and audit controls.

iv. Ability to align solutions with regulatory, audit, and risk management requirements.

• GenAI & Emerging Technologies (Good to Have) :
• Basic understanding of AWS Bedrock and managed foundation models.

ii. Basic awareness of integrating GenAI use cases into enterprise architectures.

iii. Understanding of data privacy, security, and governance in Bedrock

• Consulting, Pre-Sales & Leadership :
• Strong client-facing experience with the ability to lead architecture discussions and influence stakeholders.

ii. Proven experience in pre-sales, solutioning, and technical proposal creation.

iii. Ability to negotiate scope, timelines, and technical trade-offs with clients.

iv. Experience in building, mentoring, and scaling engineering teams.

• Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management (Mandatory) :
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Associate or Professional).
• Specialty certifications such as CKA, CKE, and AWS Security Specialty are considered an added Qualifications :
• Experience in multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments.
• Exposure to FinOps and cost optimization strategies.
• Experience in large-scale enterprise digital transformation programs.

(ref:hirist.tech)