AWS Cloud Solution Architect

North Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL

Contract

Role Overview

The AWS Cloud Architect will lead the design, planning, and execution of the Data Center Exit (DC Exit) program. This role focuses on migrating on-premises infrastructure, applications, and services to AWS Cloud while ensuring performance, scalability, cost efficiency, and compliance with enterprise standards. The architect will partner with cross-functional teams including application owners, infrastructure engineers, and security teams to define and deliver the end-state cloud architecture.

Key Responsibilities:

Assessment & Planning:

o Conduct Migration Portfolio Assessment (MPA) and Migration Readiness Assessment (CAF) across business, governance, security, and operations.

o Define 7R application dispositions, build dependency maps, and create migration wave plans with TCO and risk analysis.

Cloud Architecture & Design

o Design scalable, secure, and resilient AWS cloud solutions to replace on-prem data center infrastructure.

o Develop target-state architecture, migration blueprints, and reference architectures aligned with AWS best practices and the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

o Select appropriate AWS services (e.g., EC2, ECS, EKS, RDS, S3, Lambda, CloudFront, CloudFormation, IAM) for various workloads.

Migration & Execution

o Lead migration assessments, application dependency mapping, and wave planning.

o Collaborate with migration teams to execute lift-and-shift, re-platforming, or re-architecting strategies.

o Oversee workload migration validation, performance tuning, and post-migration optimization.

Governance & Security

o Implement cloud governance, compliance, and cost-management practices.

o Ensure security controls (IAM, KMS, VPC security, GuardDuty, etc.) meet enterprise and regulatory standards.

o Define tagging standards, automation templates, and operational guardrails.

Collaboration & Leadership

o Partner with application teams, networking, and operations to ensure a seamless transition from on-prem to AWS.

o Mentor teams on cloud-native practices, automation, and DevOps adoption.

o Provide executive reporting on progress, risks, and mitigation strategies for the DC Exit initiative.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).

12 years of experience in infrastructure, cloud, or enterprise architecture.

8 years of hands-on AWS Cloud architecture experience, including VPC design, IAM, EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFormation/Terraform, and monitoring tools (CloudWatch, Config).

Proven experience leading large-scale data center migration or exit programs.

Strong understanding of networking, security, automation (CI/CD, IaC), and hybrid cloud connectivity.

Experience with migration tools (CloudEndure, AWS Migration Hub, Application Discovery Service).

Strong knowledge of networking, security, and compliance frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional (preferred) or Associate.

Familiarity with multi-account strategy and AWS Control Tower.

Experience in cost optimization and FinOps practices.

Exposure to modernization (containers, serverless, microservices) and DevOps practices.

Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.