Systems Architect

Peraton is hiring a Systems Architect who will support the continued evolution of the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) program. This is a remote role.

NBIS is the federal government's enterprise platform for personnel vetting, adjudication, continuous vetting, and trusted workforce modernization. The architect will provide technical leadership across cloud-native platforms, enterprise integrations, data services, AI-enabled capabilities, cybersecurity, and DevSecOps practices.

Responsibilities

Architecture & Technical Leadership

Serve as a senior technical leader across multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and product teams.
• Define and maintain solution architectures aligned with business objectives, mission outcomes, and enterprise architecture standards.
• Lead architecture reviews, technical design sessions, and technology evaluations.
• Develop architectural roadmaps supporting modernization, scalability, resiliency, and maintainability.
• Drive adoption of cloud-native patterns, micro-services, APIs, event-driven architectures, and platform engineering practices.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend practical implementation approaches.
• Owns architectural standards, patterns, governance, technology road-maps, and cross-cutting concerns.
• Thinks in terms of platforms, ecosystems, and long-term evolution.

Artificial Intelligence & Data Strategy

• Lead the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Generative AI capabilities into mission work-flows.
• Define architectures for secure use of Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), intelligent search, summarization, and decision-support capabilities.
• Establish architectural guardrails for Responsible AI, explain-ability, model governance, data protection, and audit-ability.
• Partner with product owners and mission stakeholders to identify opportunities where AI can improve investigator, adjudicator, and analyst productivity.
• Guide implementation of AI services within approved government cloud environments and security constraints.

Cloud & Platform Engineering

• Design and oversee architectures deployed within AWS GovCloud and other approved government cloud environments.
• Support Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approaches using tools such as Terraform, Cloud-Formation, and Ansible.
• Define standards for containerized workloads, Kubernetes/EKS, ECS/Fargate, serverless technologies, and managed cloud services.
• Collaborate with infrastructure teams to improve reliability, observability, performance, and cost optimization.

Security & Compliance

• Ensure solutions align with Zero Trust principles, DoD cybersecurity requirements, and federal security frameworks.
• Partner with cybersecurity and compliance teams to support ATO activities, security assessments, and continuous monitoring.
• Architect secure identity and access management solutions, including ICAM, federation, and role-based access controls.
• Incorporate security, privacy, and data protection requirements into all solution designs.

DevSecOps & Delivery Excellence

• Partner with development teams to establish and improve CI/CD pipelines and automated testing strategies.
• Promote engineering best practices including code quality, observability, resiliency, automation, and technical debt management.
• Support implementation of DevSecOps tooling and processes across multiple development teams.
• Collaborate with product management and Agile leadership to align technical strategy with program priorities.

What you'll need:

• Education: 12 years of experience with a BS/BA degree, 10 years with a MS/MA or 7 years with a PhD.
• Clearance: active Secret required.
• Experience designing and delivering large-scale enterprise applications.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures in AWS.
• Experience with microservices, APIs, distributed systems, and modern application frameworks.
• Experience leading architecture efforts within Agile or SAFe environments.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles and secure software development practices.
• Experience communicating with executive leadership, technical teams, and government stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting DCSA, DoD, Intelligence Community, or other federal programs.
• Experience with personnel vetting, case management, investigative systems, or identity-related solutions.
• Experience with AI/ML platforms, LLM integration, RAG architectures, vector databases, and AI governance.
• AWS Solutions Architect, Security, DevOps, or related certifications.
• Experience with GraphQL, event streaming, data mesh, and modern data architectures.
• Experience with Zero Trust and ICAM implementations.
• Experience with GitLab, Terraform, Kubernetes, and modern DevSecOps platforms.

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world's leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land, sea, space, air, and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day, our employees do the can't be done by solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers. Visit peraton.com to learn how we're keeping people around the world safe and secure.