Solution Architect II

Location: Atlanta, GA
Client: Southern Company
Employment Type: Contract-to-Hire (3-6 Months)

Experience Required: 7–10+ years

We are seeking a highly experienced Solution Architect II with strong expertise in enterprise DevOps, Azure Cloud, Platform Engineering, CI/CD architecture, automation, GitHub Actions, and secure software delivery

This is a senior-level position requiring an individual who can operate effectively in a large enterprise environment, lead cross-functional technical initiatives, influence architecture and engineering decisions, and communicate confidently with Director-level and senior leadership.

The ideal candidate will bring hands-on technical depth combined with strong architecture, leadership, communication, and stakeholder-management capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide cross-functional technical leadership across DevOps, cloud, platform engineering, application development, security, and infrastructure teams.

• Design and support scalable enterprise DevOps platforms and engineering solutions

• Architect and improve enterprise CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, and software delivery processes

• Design, manage, and optimize GitHub Actions Runner and build-agent infrastructure

• Support enterprise Azure Cloud architecture, identity, access management, and governance

• Develop and support cloud-native and container-based platforms

• Integrate security controls and best practices into CI/CD pipelines and software delivery processes.

• Advance enterprise DevSecOps capabilities and secure software development practices.

• Evaluate and support adoption of GitHub Copilot and AI-enabled development technologies

• Develop observability, reporting, analytics, and performance-monitoring capabilities for DevOps platforms.

• Collaborate with architects, developers, infrastructure teams, cybersecurity teams, business stakeholders, and senior leadership.

• Present technical strategies, architecture recommendations, risks, and solutions to Director-level and executive stakeholders.

• Establish architectural standards, engineering best practices, and automation strategies across teams.

• Identify opportunities to improve developer productivity, platform reliability, security, scalability, and operational efficiency.

Critical Skill Areas

Candidates should demonstrate particularly strong expertise in the following areas:

1. Cross-Functional Technical Leadership

• Ability to lead architecture and technical initiatives involving multiple engineering and business teams.

• Experience influencing technical strategy and architectural decisions within a large enterprise.

• Strong stakeholder-management and executive communication skills.

2. Enterprise DevOps Platform Engineering

• Enterprise-scale DevOps platform architecture and engineering.

• Platform standardization, automation, governance, scalability, and reliability.

• Experience supporting large development organizations and multiple engineering teams.

3. CI/CD Architecture & Automation

• Design and implementation of enterprise CI/CD architectures.

• Pipeline automation, deployment automation, build processes, and release management.

• Experience improving software delivery speed, reliability, and governance.

4. GitHub Actions & Build Infrastructure

• Strong hands-on experience with GitHub Actions

• Architecture and administration of GitHub Actions runners.

• Build-agent infrastructure, scalability, security, and performance optimization.

• Enterprise GitHub configuration and integration experience.

5. Azure Cloud & Identity Governance

• Strong experience with Microsoft Azure

• Azure architecture, infrastructure, identity, security, and governance.

• Experience implementing enterprise cloud standards and controls.

Additional Technical Areas

Cloud-Native & Container Platforms

• Experience supporting cloud-native applications and container technologies.

• Knowledge of Kubernetes, container orchestration, and modern application deployment patterns preferred.

DevSecOps & Secure Software Delivery

• Integration of security practices into CI/CD pipelines.

• Secure software development lifecycle practices.

• Automated security controls, scanning, governance, and compliance.

GitHub Copilot & AI Enablement

• Experience with or understanding of GitHub Copilot and AI-assisted software development.

• Ability to evaluate AI technologies for enterprise engineering productivity and governance.

Observability & Platform Analytics

• Monitoring and observability of DevOps platforms and pipelines.

• Platform metrics, reporting, dashboards, and engineering analytics.

• Ability to identify performance and reliability improvement opportunities.

Required Qualifications

• 7–10+ years of relevant professional experience in areas such as:

  • DevOps Engineering

  • Cloud Engineering

  • Platform Engineering

  • Solution Architecture

  • CI/CD Engineering

  • Infrastructure Automation

  • Software Delivery Engineering

• Significant experience working within enterprise-level technology environments

• Strong experience with Azure Cloud technologies

• Strong experience designing and supporting CI/CD platforms and automation

• Strong experience with GitHub and GitHub Actions

• Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple teams and technology disciplines.

• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture, cloud governance, security, and software delivery.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical teams and senior leadership.

• Comfortable presenting recommendations and technical strategy to Director-level and executive stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with GitHub Enterprise.

• Experience architecting GitHub Actions Runner infrastructure.

• Azure identity and access-management experience.

• Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration-management experience.

• Kubernetes and container-platform experience.

• DevSecOps architecture and security automation experience.

• Enterprise observability and monitoring experience.

• Experience implementing or governing GitHub Copilot or other AI-assisted development technologies.

• Experience working within utilities, energy, highly regulated industries, or other large enterprise environments is a plus.

Location & Work Requirements

Atlanta Area Candidates

Candidates located in the Atlanta, GA area must be able to work from the corporate office as required.

The current hybrid schedule operates on approximately a 2-day/3-day office rotation, although business requirements may increase onsite expectations to approximately 4 days per week

Candidates Outside Atlanta

Candidates located outside the Atlanta area must:

• Reside within Southern Company's operational footprint or near an approved corporate office location.

• Be willing to travel to Atlanta approximately 15% of the time

• Be able to report to a designated corporate office when requested.

Flexibility regarding onsite work is required as business needs evolve.

Interview Process

Qualified candidates should expect a multi-stage panel interview process:

• Panel Interview 1: DevOps technical team

• Panel Interview 2: DevOps management and DSS leadership

Candidates should be prepared for both detailed technical discussions and senior-level architectural and leadership conversations.

Ideal Candidate

The strongest candidate will combine deep hands-on DevOps and cloud expertise with enterprise architecture and technical leadership experience

This position is best suited for someone who has moved beyond simply administering DevOps tools and has experience designing enterprise platforms, establishing technical standards, leading cross-functional initiatives, and advising senior leadership on technology strategy

Key Skills:
DevOps | Solution Architecture | Azure | GitHub | GitHub Actions | CI/CD | Platform Engineering | Cloud Engineering | DevSecOps | Kubernetes | Containers | Infrastructure Automation | Azure Identity | Cloud Governance | GitHub Copilot | Observability | Enterprise Architecture | Technical Leadership