Solution Architect - Senior / Intermediate

Kappaalphapsi1911; Ann Arbor (MI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Training & career development

Retirement savings plan

Paid time off

Family care support

Job summary

University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI is seeking a Solution Architect at senior/intermediate level to lead cloud enablement initiatives and DevOps practices. The role focuses on migrating applications to the public cloud (GCP), building self-service tooling, and managing IaC with Terraform and GitOps workflows.

Ideal candidates will have 7+ years IT experience, strong Python/Go automation skills, and ability to mentor others while driving architecture and reliability across vendor

Qualifications

• 7+ years IT related experience.
• 5+ years in SRE, DevOps, or Software Development.
• Deep experience architecting and managing production workloads in a major public cloud.
• Ability to mentor staff, lead code reviews, and design high-level architecture.

Responsibilities

• Drive cloud enablement and migration of applications on GCP with GKE, IAM, and networking.
• Develop self-service infrastructure tooling for environment provisioning.
• Design and maintain IaC using Terraform and GitOps.
• Provide vendor application stewardship and ensure uptime.
• Participate in on-call rotations and meet SLAs.
• Lead by example in coding and automation with Python/Go.

Skills

Python

Go

DevOps

SRE

Automation

Cloud

Education

Bachelor's Degree or equivalent

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

GitLab CI

Job description

# Solution Architect - Senior / IntermediateUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor, MIFull-TimeAug 15, 2026Information Technology## Job Description## How to ApplyA cover letter is required for consideration for this position and should be attached as the first page of your resume. The cover letter should address your specific interest in the position and outline skills and experience that directly relate to this position.**Department Overview**Health Information Technology & Services (HITS) plays an integral role in the success of Michigan Medicine (MM) by providing clinicians, educators, researchers, students, and staff with exceptional technology-related information, products, services, and support. HITS also provides institutional expertise related to IT strategy, security, infrastructure, and resource management.**Division Overview**The HITS Academic IT division (Acad IT) serves the education and research communities at the University of Michigan Medical School. We engage faculty, students, and staff to provide a holistic portfolio of software, applications, infrastructure, device support, and custom projects to enable innovation and excellence.## Job Summary**Our Vision: Speed, Safely**On the DevOps team our goal is to empower developers to move fast - from initial cloud infrastructure provisioning to the rapid, safe deployment and execution of code. This team exists to make that speed available safely.For our high-velocity engineering partners, this means providing the security tooling and observability they need while enabling them to deliver at full velocity. For teams earlier in their cloud journey, it means working side-by-side to establish best practices like automated deployment pipelines and self-healing security patching. We don't just manage servers; we build the paved roads.**Our Platform Values**We cannot be all things to all people. To provide the best experience for our customers, we focus our excellence on these five pillars:* **Deployment Speed**: Reducing the time between "code complete" and "production ready."* **Observability**: Ensuring every service has deep, actionable telemetry by default.* **Security**: Making the secure path the easiest path for every developer.* **Simplicity**: Favoring clean, maintainable architecture over clever but fragile complexity.* **Usability**: Providing things developers can quickly pick up and put into practice with ease.**Core Competencies of The DevOps Team**Aligning with these behaviors is essential for success within our team culture and how we show up for each other:1. **Total Ownership** - "A Narwhal Takes Care of Its Stuff!" - The DevOps Narwhals are reliable and accountable, committing to deliver the highest value, following up with customers and commitments. We are accountable and meet our commitments, handling every task with integrity.2. **Collaboration to the Core** - "A Narwhal Plays Well with Others" - Within the team, the DevOps Narwhals are focused on facts and outcomes. We seek the deepest collaborative and transparent options to do excellent work. Narwhals engage in documentation as a first-class communication and support mechanism and work tirelessly to share and build knowledge in the team.3. **System Conscious** - "A Narwhal Navigates the Treacherous Sea" - We know our context in the wider world, introducing features and change with thoughtful, future-proofed designs. We work within a diverse ecosystem of cultural and architectural norms, respecting what's there when considering something new. Using systems thinking and analysis, we reason through complexity, anticipating future needs and standardizing when possible. We focus on clarity, readability, maintainability, and simplifying integrations.4. **Constant Customer Value** - "A Narwhal Knows Its Blessing" - A Narwhal proactively builds empathetic relationships with our customers. Everything we build introduces and maintains value for our customers without speculation. We keep our customers and their experiences at the forefront with clear communication channels and feedback to ensure we're delivering quality systems that add value to their workflows.\* You may have noticed the narwhal terminology above. The Narwhal is our team mascot and brings a little extra fun to what we do.## Responsibilities\** **Cloud Enablement:** Drive the migration and evolution of applications within the public cloud (primarily **GCP**), focusing on GKE, VPC design, and IAM.* **Developer Platform Engineering:** Build self-service infrastructure tools that allow developers to provision environments and deploy code with minimal friction.* **Infrastructure as Code (IaC):** Architect and maintain reproducible environments using Terraform and GitOps workflows.* **Vendor Application Stewardship:** Provide stable, reliable hosting for critical vendor-provided systems. While these systems may not always be cloud-native, we are committed to their stability and uptime. This includes performing necessary maintenance and troubleshooting to ensure the teams relying on them stay unblocked.**Operational Expectations & On-Call**Reliability is a foundational requirement for our department. Teammates are required to be part of a formal on-call rotation to resolve issues within stated SLAs.* **Support Scope:** While most applications are supported 9-5, we manage a small subset of **critical services and vendor applications** that require 24/7 availability. To give a general sense of what this means in real terms, we have had 9 instances of off-hours on-call activity over the entire past year.* **The "Fix It Forever" Mindset:** We use operational incidents as data to prioritize automation-if a manual task happens twice, we aim to code it out of existence.**AI Usage**We know this can be a touchy subject. To be clear: Yes, please. This isn't just about using AI chat to help on something. This and other tools that enable speed and new ways of working are welcome. In fact, candidates who have replaced legacy workflows with AI are especially compelling. This isn't about replacing depth and experience. It is about bringing about new possibilities that previously were unattainable.## Required Qualifications\***Senior Level*** Bachelor's Degree or equivalent combination or education and experience.* 7+ years of IT related experience.* 5+ years in SRE, DevOps, or Software Development.* Public Cloud Depth: Deep experience architecting and managing production workloads in a major public cloud (GCP, AWS, or Azure).* Technical Leadership: Ability to mentor staff, lead code reviews, and design high-level architecture.**Intermediate Level*** Bachelor's Degree or equivalent combination or education and experience.* 5+ years of IT related experience.* 3+ years in a technical role focused on cloud-native environments and automation.* Cloud Competency: Practical experience deploying and managing services within a public cloud.* Coding Proficiency: Strong ability in Python, Go, or similar for automation and internal tooling.## Desired Qualifications\** Preferred Cloud: Hands-on experience withGoogle Cloud Platform (GCP).* Tools: Terraform, Ansible, GitLab CI.* Containers: Docker, Kubernetes (although we're seeking to minimize this), Helm, and Container Security tools.* Vendor Support: Experience troubleshooting and maintaining third-party enterprise software.## Modes of WorkPositions that are eligible for hybrid or mobile/remote work mode are at the discretion of the hiring department. Work agreements are reviewed annually at a minimum and are subject to change at any time, and for any reason, throughout the course of employment. Learn more about the work modes.## Work LocationsThis position is being offered as a Hybrid position. There will be times that it will be appropriate for you to work from home (the team's current in-person day is Wednesday each week). There will be other times that you will be required to work onsite for meetings, and customer interactions. This position will be primarily remote work. May require working during non-business hours and on weekends. On-Call rotation is required for this position.## Underfill StatementThis position may be underfilled at a lower classification depending on the qualifications of the selected candidate.## Additional Information**Benefits**We offer a benefits package that includes comprehensive training and career development opportunities, generous retirement savings plans, ample paid time off, and a wealth of family care support: https://careers.umich.edu/benefits.## Background ScreeningMichigan Medicine conducts background screening and pre-employment drug testing on job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent job offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background screenings. Background screenings are performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Report Act. Pre-employment drug testing applies to all selected candidates, including new or additional faculty and staff appointments, as well as transfers from other U-M campuses.## Application DeadlineJob openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. The review and selection process may begin as early as the eighth day after posting. This opening may be removed from posting boards and filled any time after the minimum posting period has ended.## U-M EEO StatementThe University of Michigan is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.### About University of MichiganWhy Work at Michigan?Being part of something greater, of serving a larger mission of discovery and care — that's the heart of what drives people to work at Michigan. In some way, great or small, every person here helps to advance this world-class institution. It's adding a purpose to your profession. Work at Michigan and become a victor for the greater good.Workplace CultureThe University of Michigan is committed to establishing, supporting and maintaining a culture where all members of the U-M community feel safe and supported.Our Values* Values guide our choices and actions. From how we hire and promote, make decisions, educate, conduct research, provide care, and treat one another. We strive to ensure the following values reflect who we are and what we stand for.* Integrity - We act with honesty and take responsibility for our actions.* Respect - We act in a way that acknowledges the humanity and contributions of each individual.* Inclusion- We create an environment where all can participate, are invited to contribute, and have a sense of belonging.* Equity - We create conditions that provide everyone an opportunity to thrive.* Diversity - We welcome, acknowledge and appreciate our similarities and differences.* Innovation - We promote creativity and curiosity to tackle challenges and inspire new ideas.More about Working at U-M* Our commitment to campus culture* Our commitment to faculty and staff well-being* Our commitment to employee engagement