Senior Application Architect

Key Job Duties

• Define and maintain application architectures across on-prem and cloud-native, microservices, and API-driven systems.

• Partner with development teams to guide solution design, code quality, and engineering best practices throughout the SDLC.

• Use AI-assisted tooling (such as Claude, OpenAI, or GitHub Copilot) as part of everyday engineering and architecture work—accelerating design, prototyping, code review, and documentation—and help teams adopt these tools effectively and responsibly.

• Guide cloud strategy and modernization—including workload assessments, migration and modernization approaches, and foundational design—across cloud environments.

• Design identity and access management approaches—authentication, authorization, single sign-on, and role- or attribute-based access—and partner with security teams on identity governance and least-privilege access.

• Establish observability practices—logging, metrics, distributed tracing, profiling, and meaningful alerting—so teams can understand system health and diagnose issues quickly.

• Promote Infrastructure-as-Code and environment automation to support consistent, repeatable provisioning and environment parity.

• Help shape CI/CD practices and pipelines, integrating automated testing, security scanning, static analysis, and staged deployments.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define technical roadmaps, architectural standards, and reusable patterns.

• Provide support for development teams, including API design, performance tuning, and troubleshooting complex issues.

• Ensure solutions meet enterprise security, compliance, and governance requirements.

• Mentor engineers across application, cloud, identity, and platform disciplines to elevate team capability and technical maturity.

Required Professional Skills & Experience

Technical Expertise

• Minimum 5 years of related experience in an architecture or senior engineering capacity.

• Strong foundation in application architecture, distributed systems, integration, and API design.

• Hands-on experience designing and operating cloud services in a major public cloud, with the adaptability to work across more than one cloud platform.

• Working knowledge of identity and access management—authentication and authorization protocols (such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, or SAML), single sign-on, role-based access, and enterprise identity providers.

• Familiarity with observability and monitoring practices—instrumentation, logging, metrics, profiling, and tracing—and one or more supporting tools (e.g., Log Analytics, Dynatrace, Splunk, Prometheus, or Grafana).

• Experience with DevOps tooling and CI/CD (such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins).

• Operational knowledge of Infrastructure-as-Code and environment automation (e.g., Terraform, Ansible).

• Backend development experience in one or more common languages (such as C++, Java, or Python).

• Comfort using AI-assisted development and productivity tools (such as Claude or OpenAI) in daily work, with sound judgment about where they add value.

• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration concepts (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).

• Working understanding of security, networking, and governance frameworks.

• Comfort leading proof-of-concepts and early technical validation—evaluating options, testing key assumptions, and turning findings into clear, actionable recommendations.

• Ability to design and govern application data models and integration schemas with attention to consistency, data quality, and alignment with enterprise data governance standards.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Ability to influence engineering teams and drive adoption of architectural standards.

• Strong communication skills for translating complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.

• Clear documentation of technical architecture, decisions, and strategies.

• Experience guiding teams through SDLC processes, release management, and quality practices.

• Proven ability to lead modernization and cloud migration initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Azure certifications (AZ-305, AZ-400, AZ-104) or comparable AWS certifications (e.g., Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, or SysOps Administrator).

• Relevant identity or security certifications, or hands-on experience with identity governance and access management platforms.

• Experience with event-driven architectures, messaging systems, or domain-driven design.

• Exposure to multiple cloud or hybrid environments.

• Background in enterprise-scale transformation or platform engineering.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree: Computer Science, MIS or related field (Required)

• Master's Degree: Computer Science, MIS or related field (Preferred)

• or a combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge to a major in such fields is required

Work Location – Taylor, TX:

• Employees will be required to be on-site in Taylor, TX at a minimum of 2 days per week, or more, as needed based on the business needs as determined by management

• On-site schedules are flexible or may be rotated based on business needs as determined by the Manager

• Remote work is required to be performed from your Texas residence.

• Employees may opt to work on-site more than required or 100% of the time

The foregoing description reflects the minimum qualifications and the essential functions of the position that must be performed proficiently with or without reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities. It is not an exhaustive list of the duties expected to be performed, and management may, at its discretion, revise or require that other or different tasks be performed as assigned. This job description is not intended to create a contract of employment with ERCOT. Both ERCOT and the employee may exercise their employment-at-will rights at any time. #LI-DN

ERCOT is firmly committed to equal employment for all qualified persons without regard to race, sex, medical condition, religion, age, creed, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, ancestry, veteran status, genetic information or any other protected category under federal, state or local law.

Expected Salary Range:

$135,000 - $185,000