Chief Architect

Mindware INC; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Mindware INC is seeking an experienced Chief Architect – DevOps & Observability to define and govern enterprise-wide DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Observability standards across technology stacks and environments. The role will establish Gold Standards, reference architectures, and engineering practices to enable secure, automated deployment pipelines.

The ideal candidate combines enterprise architecture with hands-on depth, technology evaluation, and transformation leadership to drive

Qualifications

• Enterprise architecture mindset with hands-on technical depth across DevOps, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Observability.
• Experience defining, governing, and driving enterprise-wide standards and reference architectures.
• Ability to lead POVs/POCs, build evaluation frameworks, and guide cloud-native and legacy modernization.

Responsibilities

• Define and own enterprise DevOps and DevSecOps Gold Standards across application development and infrastructure engineering.
• Source code management, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, security integration, automated testing, containerization, GitOps, and release management.
• Define reference architectures, technology patterns, reusable components, and standardized CI/CD pipeline architectures and templates.
• Establish enterprise standards for security integration in the software delivery lifecycle, including SAST/DAST/SCA and IaC security.
• Lead standards for cloud-native, containerized, VM-based, and legacy applications; align with security, architecture, compliance, and cloud strategy.
• Evolve Gold Standards based on technology trends and business needs; maintain a DevOps & Observability technology catalog and reference architectures.
• Technology stack evaluation and POVs: define requirements, use cases, success criteria, and evaluation methodologies; perform hands-on assessments.

Job description

The role of an Architect in the Delivery department focuses on designing and implementing robust solutions leveraging DevOps, DevSecOps, and CI/CD practices. This position supports critical initiatives to streamline delivery processes and establish secure, efficient, and automated deployment pipelines.

Job Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced Chief Architect – DevOps & Observability to define,govern, and drive the adoption of enterprise-wide DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Observability standards across technology stacks and application environments.

This role will be responsible for establishing enterprise Gold Standards, reference architectures, technology patterns, and engineering practices for DevOps and Observability.

The architect will evaluate emerging technologies and tools, conduct Proofs of Value (POVs), define technology recommendations, and lead the implementation of approved standards across applications and infrastructure.

The ideal candidate combines enterprise architecture, hands-on technical depth, technology evaluation, DevSecOps, cloud-native engineering, observability, and transformation leadership. The individual must be capable of moving from strategy and architecture through POV, standardization, implementation, and enterprise adoption.

Core Areas of Ownership

The Chief Architect will have end-to-end ownership across four key areas:

1. DevSecOps & DevOps Gold Standards

3. Observability Gold Standards

Key Responsibilities

• DevOps & DevSecOps Gold Standards
• Define and own enterprise DevOps and DevSecOps Gold Standards across application development and infrastructure engineering.
• Source code management
• CI/CD
• Infrastructure as Code
• Security integration
• Automated testing
• Containerization
• GitOps
• Release management
• Define reference architectures, technology patterns, reusable components, and
• Establish standardized CI/CD pipeline architectures and reusable pipeline templates.
• Define enterprise standards for integrating security into the software delivery lifecycle.
• Establish standards for SAST, DAST, SCA, container security, IaC security, secrets management, and policy enforcement.
• Define DevSecOps standards for cloud-native, containerized, VM-based, and legacy applications.
• Ensure standards are aligned with enterprise security, architecture, compliance, and cloud strategies.
• Continuously evolve Gold Standards based on technology trends, business requirements, and lessons learned from implementations.
• Technology Stack Evaluation & Proof of Value
• Own the evaluation and technical assessment of DevOps, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Observability technologies.
• Identify emerging technologies and assess their applicability to the enterprise technology landscape.
• Develop evaluation frameworks and technical scorecards for comparing tools and platforms.
• Lead Proofs of Concept / Proofs of Value (POCs/POVs) for new technologies.
• Define technical requirements, use cases, success criteria, architecture, and evaluation methodology for POVs.
• Conduct hands-on technical evaluations and demonstrate capabilities to technology leadership and customers.
• Provide architecture recommendations and Build vs. Buy vs. Partner assessments.
• Evaluate integration capabilities across existing enterprise platforms and technology ecosystems.
• Develop recommendations for technology standardization and rationalization.
• Maintain a DevOps & Observability technology reference architecture and approved technology catalog.

Observability Gold Standards

• Define and own enterprise Observability Gold Standards for applications, infrastructure, cloud platforms, Kubernetes, databases, APIs, and distributed systems.
• Metrics
• Logs
• Traces
• Events
• Application performance monitoring
• Infrastructure monitoring
• Digital experience monitoring
• Synthetic monitoring
• API monitoring
• Database observability
• Cloud observability
• Define standardized instrumentation and telemetry requirements for applications.
• Establish standards for application onboarding onto enterprise observability platforms.
• Define Golden Signals, SLIs, SLOs, SLAs, KPIs, and alerting standards.
• Establish enterprise standards for dashboards, alerts, event correlation, noise reduction, and incident integration.
• Define standards for observability data collection, retention, aggregation, and integration with AIOps platforms.
• Establish application observability maturity models and assessment frameworks.

Define standardized observability patterns for different application architectures, including:

• Microservices
• APIs
• Cloud-native applications
• Legacy applications
• Hybrid applications

Implementation of Observability Standards

• Lead the implementation of Observability Gold Standards across enterprise applications.
• Develop reusable instrumentation patterns, dashboards, alerts, and onboarding templates.
• Create standardized onboarding frameworks for applications and infrastructure.
• Work directly with application teams to implement observability standards.
• Assess existing application observability and define gaps against the enterprise Gold Standard.
• Develop remediation roadmaps and implementation plans.
• Establish automated onboarding wherever possible.
• Ensure application teams adopt standardized telemetry, dashboards, alerting, and SLO practices.
• Partner with AIOps and Operations teams to integrate observability data into incident management, event correlation, RCA, and automation workflows.

DevSecOps Standards Implementation:

• Lead implementation of DevSecOps Gold Standards across application teams.
• Assess applications against the enterprise DevSecOps maturity model.
• Identify gaps across CI/CD, security, IaC, testing, deployment, and release processes.
• Develop application-specific implementation roadmaps.
• Create reusable pipeline templates, Terraform modules, security integrations, and deployment patterns.
• Drive application onboarding to standardized DevSecOps platforms.
• Establish automated compliance and policy validation against Gold Standards.
• Develop dashboards to measure adoption, compliance, engineering performance, and business value.

Standards, Assets & Reusable IP Develop and maintain a reusable enterprise architecture repository containing:

• DevSecOps Gold Standards
• Observability Gold Standards
• Reference Architectures
• Approved Technology Catalog
• CI/CD Templates
• IaC Templates
• Security Integration Patterns
• Observability Templates
• Alerting Standards
• Application Onboarding Frameworks
• Maturity Assessment Frameworks