DevOps Architect - St. Louis, MO

Job Overview

We are seeking a DevOps Architect to serve as the singular highest-level technical authority across our DevOps practice. In this role, you will set the vision, standards, and strategy for how infrastructure, platforms, and delivery pipelines are built and operated across multiple software solutions. You will work closely with a peer team of software architects — each responsible for individual solutions — to ensure that platform decisions align with application design and organizational goals. This is an ownership role: you will define the patterns that principal and senior engineers execute, and you will be accountable for the integrity and evolution of those patterns over time.

#LI-CH1

A Day In The Life

Platform Strategy & Architecture
▪    Own the end-to-end platform architecture across all software solutions, establishing standards for Kubernetes topology, multi-tenancy, cluster lifecycle, and workload design.
▪    Improve and govern the organization's Kubernetes strategy, with mastery-level expertise in Red Hat OpenShift and AKS; guide evaluation and adoption of new platform capabilities, including future AWS expansion.
▪    Set the GitOps strategy and ArgoCD architecture, including application structuring, promotion models, multi-cluster patterns, and developer-facing abstractions.
▪    Establish container platform standards: image supply chain, registry governance, vulnerability management, and base-image policies.
Infrastructure as Code & Cloud Strategy
▪    Own the IaC strategy and Terraform architecture: module design, repository structure, state management, and governance practices adopted across all teams.
▪    Define cloud platform standards across Azure and OpenShift environments, including network topology, identity and access patterns, landing zone design, and cost governance.
▪    Evaluate cloud-native services and infrastructure tooling, making adoption recommendations that balance capability, operational cost, and long-term maintainability.
▪    Ensure IaC practices are extensible to future cloud platforms, including AWS, as the organization's footprint evolves.
Observability, Reliability & Security
▪    Own the observability strategy and stack architecture — defining tooling standards (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, and logging/tracing platforms), data retention policies, and alerting frameworks used across all solutions.
▪    Define SLO/SLI frameworks and reliability practices, establishing the organizational approach to error budgets, incident response, and post-mortem culture.
▪    Own the platform security posture: secrets management strategy, policy enforcement architecture (OPA/Gatekeeper or Kyverno), network segmentation standards, and compliance controls.
CI/CD & Developer Experience
▪    Define CI/CD architecture and pipeline standards across all solutions, ensuring consistent delivery practices while accommodating the needs of individual software teams.
▪    Establish progressive delivery patterns — canary releases, blue/green deployments, feature flags — as standard options available to engineering teams.
▪    Partner with software architects to ensure platform capabilities and delivery pipelines align with the design and deployment requirements of each solution.
Technical Leadership & Cross-Functional Alignment
▪    Serve as the definitive technical authority on all DevOps and platform matters, providing direction to DevOps engineers and ensuring consistent execution of architectural decisions.
▪    Collaborate as a peer with the software architect team, coordinating platform decisions with application architecture to produce coherent, end-to-end system designs.
▪    Author and maintain architectural decision records (ADRs), reference architectures, and platform governance documentation for use across all engineering teams.
▪    Represent platform architecture in cross-functional planning, contributing to roadmap decisions, capacity planning, and organizational technology strategy.

What will help you thrive in this role?

Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Engineering (Computer, Mechanical, Electrical), or related field (required). 

▪    Demonstrated experience in an architect-level role, with a track record of owning platform strategy and driving  

▪    5+ years of progressive experience in DevOps, platform engineering, or infrastructure architecture. adoption across multiple teams or solutions.
▪    Mastery of Kubernetes in production environments, including deep knowledge of cluster architecture, operator frameworks, and platform lifecycle management.
▪    Expert-level Terraform skills: module architecture, state management, governance at scale.
▪    Deep ArgoCD expertise: multi-cluster management, application sets, promotion workflows, and GitOps operational patterns.
▪    Broad and deep Azure platform knowledge: networking, identity, cost management, landing zones, and Azure-native services.
▪    Strong understanding of observability principles and experience designing or selecting tooling stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).
▪    Demonstrated ability to collaborate with software architects and communicate platform decisions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
▪    Software engineering background or equivalent experience — sufficient to understand application design constraints and engage meaningfully with software architects.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
▪    10+ years of experience in information technology.
▪    Hands-on software development experience in one or more languages.
▪    Experience designing platforms for regulated industries with stringent security and compliance requirements.
▪    Experience with on-premises Kubernetes deployments and hybrid cloud strategies.
▪    AWS architecture experience or multi-cloud platform design background.
▪    Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKS) or Red Hat certifications (EX280 / OpenShift Administration).
▪    Familiarity with platform engineering frameworks (Backstage or similar internal developer portals).
▪    Experience with DevOps-related AI tooling.