Solutions Architect Contractor: 10+ years (Expert)

Solution Architect – FSI Modernization

Location: Remote, Onshore
Travel: Potential quarterly travel to Des Moines, IA
Duration: Contract
 

Job Summary

We are seeking 3–4 experienced Solution Architects to support modernization initiatives for a large Financial Services (FSI) client. The ideal candidate will have a strong technical background in application architecture, cloud modernization, and legacy-system integration.

This is a highly collaborative, matrixed environment. Candidates must be comfortable working across multiple teams, resolving design conflicts, and driving architecture decisions and technical trade-offs. This is not a solo design role.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as a Solution/Application Architect with 15+ years of experience assessing, designing, and implementing modern applications.
• Collaborate with architecture, engineering, infrastructure, data, security, and business teams.
• Drive architecture decisions and resolve technical trade-offs across multiple teams.
• Create architecture diagrams for hybrid on-premises and cloud environments.
• Develop and maintain technical backlogs, including technical user stories and dependencies.
• Document N-tier application architecture, including:
  • Authentication
  • Middleware
  • Caching
  • Data stores
  • APIs/integration
  • Monitoring and telemetry
• Provide technical guidance around on-premises Java architectures, including WebSphere.
• Support integrations between Java applications and mainframe, DB2, and VSAM environments.
• Design and support on-premises to AWS cloud modernization and migration.
• Define and evaluate migration patterns involving:
  • Authentication
  • Middleware
  • Data stores
  • Event-driven architecture
  • Caching
  • Telemetry/observability
• Apply serverless architecture patterns where appropriate.
• Support data migration and legacy-system modernization initiatives.
• Collaborate on integrations between legacy systems and modern cloud applications.
• Work closely with development and data engineering teams to ensure architecture is practical and implementable.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of software/application development and architecture experience.
• Proven experience as a Solution Architect, Application Architect, Technical Architect, or Acting Architect.
• Strong Java/J2EE architecture background.
• Experience with WebSphere or similar enterprise Java application platforms.
• Understanding of mainframe environments, DB2, and VSAM.
• Hands-on or strong technical background in AWS cloud.
• Experience with on-premises-to-AWS migration/modernization.
• Understanding of microservices, integration patterns, event-driven architecture, and serverless technologies.
• Experience with data migration and legacy-system integration.
• Strong development or data engineering background; candidates should not be purely functional or API-focused.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across multiple technical teams and work through architecture decisions and trade-offs.
• Financial Services/FSI experience is highly desirable.

Preferred Experience

• AWS Lambda and other serverless services
• Enterprise integration and middleware
• Kafka/event-driven architecture
• Cloud migration frameworks and patterns
• Application modernization
• Mainframe modernization
• Hybrid cloud architecture
• Observability and telemetry
• Architecture documentation and technical roadmaps
• Banking/financial-services environments

Work Arrangement

• Remote/onshore
• Candidates should be available for potential quarterly travel to Des Moines, Iowa.