Cloud Architect

Our Government client is looking for an experienced Cloud Architect on a remote 12 months renewable contract role in Denver, CO.
Position: Cloud Architect

Only locals needed for this role as they may need to attend any important meetings. 

The Cloud Architect is responsible for analyzing cloud technology offerings, primarily focusing on the Google Cloud Platform and designing a reliable, secure, high-performing, cost-effective application-hosting environment in direct support for . This involves determining the best network design, setting standards regarding VPC design and deployment, ensuring appropriate role-based access controls are established, designing deployable instance templates, designing a suitable approach to automated provisioning of instances and apps, and establishing the monitoring and reporting required to ensure the environment is stable, capacity is well managed, and cost reporting is accurate and timely. 
The Cloud Architect will be responsible for crafting, publishing, socializing, and overseeing adherence to the standards they establish and modifying them to achieve the strategic goals of agency and the tactical needs of the projects deployed to the cloud. In addition, they will drive continuous improvement within the CloudOps team, as well as lifecycle management and exploration into evolving cloud-based solutions. You will handle the research, recommendations, and day-to-day interactions with vendors that have been partnered to help meet work unit and organizational objectives.

Some of the primary duties and responsibilities include:
Maintain expert knowledge and experience with all aspects of agency to design and build Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) capabilities on that platform.
Participating risk and security vulnerability assessments and documenting path to remediation in the form of a roadmap
Conducting gap analysis on the efficiency of operations and governance and documenting path to increased maturity in the form of a roadmap
Analyzing overhead and shared costs and contributing to the definition of pricing and funding model for services
Design and oversee construction/configuration of agency and automation to allow consumption of services.
Define and document standards, best practices, and procedures (SOPs) for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS (via IaC) on agency that align with established tool stack and architecture standards
Create design documents/diagrams to show environment topology, and data/process flows
Monitoring system availability across a multi-vendor technology stack to maximize availability and rapidly diagnose/resolve issues
Act as Tier-3 escalation point for on-call/break-fix efforts to diagnose and resolve problems that Cloud Engineers cannot resolve with vendor support

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: 
At least five (5) years of infrastructure development experience with hands-on experience with agency foundation services related to computing, network, storage, content delivery, administration and security, deployment and management, and automation technologies.
Experience architecting highly available systems that utilize load balancing, horizontal scalability, and high availability
Deep domain expertise in cloud infrastructure solutions (i.e. Windows and Linux IaaS, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, Security, Management, Storage, Networking, OSS, containers, and Infrastructure as code technology), breadth of technical experience, and technical aptitude to learn and adjust to new technologies and cloud trends required.
Experience and understanding of large-scale infrastructure deployments in enterprise-wide environments are required.
Experience with automated Continuous Integration/Delivery 
Experience with automation/configuration management using Terraform, Ansible, or similar.
Scripting skills in Python, Bash, and PowerShell
Google Foundational certification
 
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
Professional Cloud Architect certification
Experience with AzureDevops
Required / Desired Skills:

About Vector:                                                                                                                                                       
Vector Consulting, Inc., (Headquartered in Atlanta) is an IT Talent Acquisition Solutions firm committed to delivering results. Since our founding in 1990, we have been partnering with our customers, understanding their business, and developing solutions with a commitment to quality, reliability and value. Our continuing growth has been and continues to be built around successful relationships that are based on our organization's operating philosophy and commitment to ** People, Partnerships, Purpose and Performance - THE VECTOR WAY