Introduction
As an IBM Application Architect, you directly help clients transform their business and solve complex problems. You will define the scope and vision for projects that deliver customized solutions using your knowledge of IBM platforms. You are a technical leader, serving as a liaison among business partners, technical resources, and project stakeholders.
Your Role and Responsibilities
A career in IBM Software means you’ll be part of a team that transforms our customer’s challenges into solutions.
Seeking new possibilities and always staying curious, we are a team dedicated to creating the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native software solutions for our customers. Our renowned legacy creates endless global opportunities for our IBMers, so the door is always open for those who want to grow their career.
IBM Intelligent Automation, powered by AI, addresses challenges by helping People become more productive, Businesses more scalable, and Systems more resilient. We combine human skills with automation and AI to enhance team productivity and improve decision making. We help companies digitize and intelligently automate and connect their business processes and systems end-to-end to improve business outcomes at scale. We assure that all of the applications and systems businesses rely on are always on and perform cost effectively to deliver the best possible user experience.
IBM’s product and technology landscape includes Research, Software, and Infrastructure. Entering this domain positions you at the heart of IBM, where growth and innovation thrive.
We are seeking a highly skilled Cloud Application Architect to design and implement innovative cloud-based solutions that meet the evolving needs of our organization. As an Architect, you will be responsible for leading cloud architecture initiatives, overseeing technical execution, and ensuring that our cloud applications are scalable, secure, and aligned with business objectives. The ideal candidate has deep experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), microservices, DevOps practices, and cloud-native application development.
Key Responsibilities
- Cloud Architecture Design: Be able to assess the organization’s current infrastructure, applications, and business requirements to determine the optimal cloud architecture, and lead the design and development of scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud architectures for the next-gen platform. Translate business requirements into functional cloud solutions.
- Design Scalable Solutions: Create architectures that can scale seamlessly to accommodate growth and fluctuating workloads, leveraging services like auto-scaling, serverless computing, and distributed databases while ensuring application reliability and resiliency that meets the minimum requirements of redundancy, fault tolerance, and high availability for our commercial and government customers.
- DevOps & Automation: Champion DevOps practices, enabling continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), infrastructure as code (IaC), and automated monitoring across cloud environments.
- Security & Compliance: Implement robust security measures, ensuring applications meet industry and internal IBM standards and compliance requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.).
- Performance Monitoring & Optimization: Monitor and optimize the performance, reliability, and scalability of cloud applications and infrastructure.
- Application Modernization: Drive modernization efforts for legacy applications, leveraging cloud-native architectures, microservices, containers, and serverless technologies.
- Technical Leadership: Provide hands-on leadership and technical direction to development teams, ensuring adherence to architectural best practices and guiding teams in implementing cloud solutions.
- Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including software engineers, IT operations, product managers, and business stakeholders to align technical solutions with business needs.
- Innovation & Best Practices: Stay up to date with the latest cloud technologies, tools, and best practices. Drive continuous improvement and innovation within the team.
*Must sit in one of the following locations: Bellevue, WA, San Jose, CA, Boston, MA or Austin, TX
Required Technical and Professional Expertise
Education in computer science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.
Experience
10+ years of experience in software architecture and cloud application development.
5+ years of experience as a cloud architect with expertise in cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Technical Skills
Strong understanding of cloud architecture patterns and best practices.
Expertise in cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, microservices, and serverless computing.
Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, .NET, or Go.
Deep knowledge of DevOps tools (Terraform, Jenkins, Git, Ansible) and CI/CD processes.
Experience with infrastructure as code (IaC) and automation.
Strong understanding of cloud security principles, identity management, and access control.
Certifications: Cloud certifications (AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Google Professional Cloud Architect) are a plus.
Hands-on experience architecting a scalable cloud application dealing with massive data that has been deployed in production
Soft Skills
Excellent communication and leadership skills.
Proven ability to work in a collaborative, cross-functional environment.
Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities.
Preferred Technical And Professional Expertise
15+ years of experience in software architecture and cloud application development.
About Business Unit
IBM Software infuses core business operations with intelligence—from machine learning to generative AI—to help make organizations more responsive, productive, and resilient. IBM Software helps clients put AI into action now to create real value with trust, speed, and confidence across digital labor, IT automation, application modernization, security, and sustainability. Critical to this is the ability to make use of all data, because AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. In most organizations data is spread across multiple clouds, on premises, in private datacenters, and at the edge. IBM’s AI and data platform scales and accelerates the impact of AI with trusted data, and provides leading capabilities to train, tune and deploy AI across business. IBM’s hybrid cloud platform is one of the most comprehensive and consistent approach to development, security, and operations across hybrid environments—a flexible foundation for leveraging data, wherever it resides, to extend AI deep into a business.
Your Life @ IBM
In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.
Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.
Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.
Are you ready to be an IBMer?
About IBM
IBM's greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.
Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 50 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.
At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.
Location Statement
IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:
- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being
- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs.
- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law.
- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals.
- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences.
The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.
This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.
We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.
Being You @ IBM
IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.
