Title: Principal Platform Architect

Location: Remote (US)

Duration: Long Term

Infrastructure Self-Service Platform Engagement

Position Summary

The Principal Platform Architect owns the overall solution architecture and technical governance for a governed, multi-modal infrastructure self-service platform being delivered for a financial services client on Azure. This role is accountable for architecture decisions spanning the service catalog, Terraform module standards, the golden path GitHub Actions provisioning pipeline, multi-entry-point access (GitHub UI, API, CLI, and conversational agent), the long-term memory system (semantic and graph), and two production-grade composite Terraform patterns. The architect leads client-facing design conversations, sets technical direction for the delivery team, contributes to hands on developer and delivery and formally signs off on each milestone.

Key Responsibilities

Own end-to-end solution architecture across all five delivery milestones: service catalog and state backend foundation, golden path workflow and governance pipeline, entry points (GitHub Form UI, API, CLI), conversational agent, composite patterns and the long-term memory system.
Lead assessment of the client's existing GitHub organization, Terraform module library, Azure Blob Storage remote state, and Azure Key Vault configuration; produce standards guides, gap analyses, and prioritized remediation recommendations.
Define the service catalog manifest schema (YAML/JSON) and the module authoring standards (structure, variable/output contracts, tagging taxonomy) that all Terraform modules and composite patterns must follow.
Architect the golden path GitHub Actions workflow: stage sequence, inputs/outputs contract, OPA policy checks, security scanning gates, human-in-the-loop approval, and Terraform apply - ensuring the pipeline is reusable and entry-point agnostic.
Direct the identity and access architecture: GitHub OIDC federation, Azure workload identities/service principals, RBAC and least-privilege patterns, and Entra ID-based authentication for the API and CLI.
Guide design of the three platform entry points (GitHub Issue Forms UI, versioned REST API on Azure API Management/Functions, and CLI) ensuring all converge on the same golden path workflow without duplicated logic.
Architect the conversational agent integration with existing Chatbot, including tool set design (catalog lookup, parameter validation, workflow trigger, status retrieval, memory queries), multi-turn conversation handling, and guardrails against hallucination and unauthorized actions.
Design the long-term memory system architecture: semantic layer and knowledge graph on PostgreSQL, ontology (nodes/edges for modules, patterns, policies, deployments, approvers), and ingestion/query interfaces used by the agent and pipeline.
Lead the architecture and technical design of the two composite Terraform patterns (AKS-based containers; MCP integration with APIM, Azure AI Foundry, and Azure Front Door), including component selection, module wiring, and dependency mapping.
Serve as the primary technical escalation point for the client, participate in steering committee and governance forums, and provide milestone sign-off against each Definition of Done.
Review and approve OPA policy bundles, security scanning baselines, and observability/alerting design (Grafana + GitHub data source + Microsoft Teams integration) for alignment with financial services controls.
Mentor and provide technical direction to the Platform Engineer, Security Engineer, and Project Manager on the delivery team; enforce architectural consistency across all workstreams.

Required Qualifications

10+ years in infrastructure/platform engineering with at least 4 years in a lead architect role designing and delivering cloud platform or internal developer platform (IDP) solutions.
8+ years of software engineering experience, with 2+ years in senior roles shipping production systems.
Strong Python/GO proficiency - design expressive API contracts
Strong Python/GO experience for backend services, CLIs, or systems-level tooling.
Experience with API design - RESTful APIs, versioning, error handling, pagination, and building interfaces that developers and automation consumers depend on.
Experience building or working with control planes, reconciliation loops, or state machines for resource lifecycle automation.
Understanding of distributed systems principles - eventual consistency, failure handling, idempotency, and resilience patterns.
Hands-on experience with Azure and Terraform
Experience with Kubernetes - deploying services, understanding the resource model, and operating workloads in a cluster environment.
You have shipped features through the full lifecycle - design, implementation, testing, deployment, and production operation - and you have been the one answering the page when things go wrong. You understand what it takes to keep software running, not just to get it merged.
Deep hands-on expertise architecting solutions on Microsoft Azure, including Blob Storage, Key Vault, Entra ID, API Management, and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
Proven track record designing Terraform-based Infrastructure as Code programs at scale, including module authoring standards, composite/reusable pattern design, and remote state management.
Strong experience architecting CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions, including reusable workflows, OIDC federated identity, environment protection rules, and approval gates.
Working knowledge of policy-as-code frameworks (OPA/Rego) and IaC security scanning tools (Checkov, tfsec) in a governance pipeline context.
Experience designing systems that integrate LLM-based conversational agents with backend automation/tooling, including guardrails, tool invocation constraints, and human-in-the-loop controls.
Familiarity with semantic search and knowledge graph concepts (vector embeddings, graph traversal) and experience architecting data layers that support both.
Demonstrated experience in a client-facing architecture role within a regulated or financial services environment, including formal milestone governance and sign-off processes.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present architecture decisions to executive and technical stakeholders.
Experience with PostgreSQL extensions for vector/semantic search and graph-style queries via recursive CTEs.
Prior experience building or integrating with an AI agent platform (e.g., Azure AI Foundry) as an LLM backend.
Prior experience with AI Agent development (Azure AI Foundry)
Experience with Grafana observability stacks, including custom data source integration and alert routing (e.g., to Microsoft Teams).
Background in financial services or other highly regulated industries with strict change control and compliance requirements.
Experience defining OpenAPI 3.x specifications and API versioning/governance standards.
PostgreSQL experience - schema design, migrations, query optimization.

Core Technical Skills

Azure: Blob Storage, Key Vault, Entra ID, API Management, AKS, Azure AI Foundry
Terraform (module design, composite patterns, remote state, provider/version governance)
GitHub Actions (reusable workflows, OIDC, Environments, Issue Forms)
OPA/Rego policy-as-code; Checkov/tfsec security scanning
PostgreSQL (semantic/vector search, graph via CTEs)
REST API design (OpenAPI 3.x), CLI tooling concepts
Grafana observability and alerting
LLM/conversational agent architecture and tool-calling patterns

Principal Platform Architect

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