Information Technology Architect

National Radio Astronomy Observatory; Green Bank (WV); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO & vacation

Healthcare plans

Retirement plan

Job summary

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) seeks an experienced Information Technology Architect to lead infrastructure and platform strategy in support of scientific computing and data-intensive workloads.

Based in locations including Albuquerque, Socorro, Charlottesville, or Green Bank, the role offers flexible options for well-qualified candidates while driving high-performance storage, networking, and scalable architectures across the enterprise.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, or related discipline.
• Ten years of progressively responsible experience in enterprise infrastructure engineering, HPC, networking, or storage.
• Experience designing or architecting large-scale infrastructure environments.

Responsibilities

• Develop enterprise technology architectures and reference designs for scientific computing.
• Collaborate with IT teams to align infrastructure with data workflows and management strategies.
• Provide architectural guidance for infrastructure modernization and performance optimization.
• Lead evaluations, tradeoff analyses, and technology selection for scalable architectures.
• Create documentation for designs, standards, and implementation recommendations.

Skills

HPC infrastructure

Storage engineering

Networking

Architectural leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/CE/IT

Job description

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Title: Information Technology Architect

Location

1011 Lopezville Rd, Socorro, NM 87801, USA 5651 Balloon Fiesta Pkwy, Albuquerque, NM 87113, USA 155 Observatory Rd, Green Bank, WV 24944, USA

Requisition Number

303

Job Family

Enterprise Info Tech

Pay Type

Salary

Required Education

CPP

Position Description

Position Summary

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a prestigious research and development organization that plays a vital role in the study of the universe. Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) is a nonprofit organization that manages and operates the NRAO under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The Observatory is a hub for technological and scientific collaboration, operating state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the international scientific community. The Observatory has been instrumental in the study of black holes, galaxies, and the early universe.

NRAO is seeking an experienced Enterprise IT Technology Architect. The Information Technology Architect provides strategic and technical architectural leadership for the infrastructure and platform ecosystem that enables the NRAO’s scientific mission. This position is responsible for defining, designing, and guiding the implementation of scalable, resilient, high-performance technology architectures supporting scientific computing, large-scale data processing, high-capacity storage, advanced networking, and geographically distributed research infrastructure.

Working collaboratively with the observatory's Enterprise IT Teams, Software Architect, and Data Architect, the Technology Architect will establish the long-term technical direction necessary to support current scientific operations and the next generation of radio telescopes. The position will play a critical role in developing technology strategies and architectural solutions capable of supporting increasingly computationally intensive scientific workloads, high-volume data movement, and the generation, processing, storage, and preservation of petabyte-scale scientific datasets.

The successful candidate will possess extensive experience architecting and implementing large-scale enterprise and high-performance computing infrastructure, with particular depth in high-performance storage architectures, and advanced networking technologies. This individual must demonstrate the ability to evaluate emerging technologies, translate complex scientific and computational requirements into actionable architectural designs, and guide technical decisions that balance performance, scalability, reliability, operational sustainability, and total cost of ownership.

This position will be based in Albuquerque, NM, Socorro, NM, Charlottesville, VA or Green Bank, WV. For well-qualified candidates, a remote work arrangement may be considered.

What You Will be Doing

• Develop and maintain enterprise technology architectures, standards, principles, and reference designs for scientific computing and supporting infrastructure.
• Assist the technical teams in EIT in developing working designs for infrastructure and platform that meet the scientific requirements for usability, availability, capacity, and performance.
• Establish architectural roadmaps addressing near-term operational requirements and long-term scientific computing demands over 12-, 24-, and 36-month planning horizons and beyond.
• Collaborate with Enterprise IT Teams, Software, and Data Architects to ensure alignment between infrastructure capabilities, application architectures, scientific data workflows, and data management strategies.
• Translate scientific requirements, computational workload characteristics, and anticipated data growth into infrastructure designs and implementation strategies.
• Lead technical evaluations, architectural tradeoff analyses, technology selection, and infrastructure modernization initiatives.
• Develop architectural documentation, including conceptual, logical, and physical designs, technology standards, integration specifications, and implementation recommendations.
• Evaluate infrastructure solutions against performance, availability, security, interoperability, scalability, and lifecycle cost requirements.
• Provide architectural guidance to engineering and operations teams responsible for implementing, administering, and supporting infrastructure platforms.
• Other duties may be assigned.

Work Environment

The successful candidate will join a team of professionals engaged in research and development in the fields of science, engineering, software development, and education. Work is typically performed in a research or development environment. Must be able to operate a personal computer. Occasional travel (domestic and international) may be required.

Who You Are

Education

• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.

Experience

• Overall a minimum of ten years of progressively responsible experience in enterprise infrastructure engineering, high-performance computing, large-scale networking, storage engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• Minimum of five years of experience designing or architecting complex, large-scale infrastructure environments.

Required Skills, Competencies and Experience

• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, or providing architectural leadership for high-capacity storage and high-bandwidth network infrastructure.
• Experience supporting mission-critical, research computing, scientific, or similarly demanding data-intensive environments.

Additional Requirement

Observatory employees must be authorized to work in the United States. The Observatory presently cannot sponsor H-1B Visas for this position.

Total Rewards

Compensation

The starting salary of this position is between $130,000 and $160,000. Factors which may affect starting pay within this range may include; education, experience, skills, competencies, other qualifications of the successful candidate, as well as internal equity and labor market conditions.

Benefits

• Excellent paid time off (13 holidays, annual accrual of up to 24 vacation days)
• Medical, dental and vision plans are effective on the first day of employment.
• AUI’s retirement benefit contributes an amount equal to 10 percent of a qualified participant’s base pay with no required employee contribution.
• Total Rewards for more information.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement

AUI is an equal opportunity employer. To view our complete statement, please visit https://public.nrao.edu/careers/. If you require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process, you may submit your request by sending an email to [e-mail]. PM20

Compensation details: 130000-160000 Yearly Salary