Senior Application Architect

At ERCOT, our diverse and dynamic work environment provides a platform on which employees can work together to build the future of the Texas power grid and wholesale market utilizing the latest technologies and resources. We encourage you to join our talented, dedicated workforce to develop world-class solutions for today and tomorrow’s energy challenges while learning new skills and growing your career. ERCOT is committed to fostering inclusion at all levels of our company. It is the cornerstone of our corporate values of accountability, leadership, innovation, trust, and expertise. We know that individuals with a wide variety of talents, ideas, and experiences propel the innovation that drives our success. An inclusive and diverse workforce strengthens us and allows for a collaborative environment to solve the challenges that face our industry today and in the future. Key Job Duties Define and maintain application architectures for traditional on-prem and cloud‑native, microservices, and API‑driven systems. Partner with development teams to guide solution design, code quality, and engineering best practices throughout the SDLC. Lead Azure migration initiatives, including workload assessments, modernization strategies, landing zone design, and execution planning. Develop and maintain Infrastructure‑as‑Code templates (Bicep, Terraform, ARM) to support consistent and automated environment provisioning. Architect and optimize CI/CD pipelines tooling using GitHub Actions and Jenkins, integrating automated testing, security scanning, static code analysis, and multi‑stage deployments. Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to define technical roadmaps, architectural standards, and reusable patterns. Implement DevOps practices such as configuration management, observability, automated deployments, and environment parity. Provide hands‑on support for backend development, including API design, performance tuning, and troubleshooting complex issues. Ensure cloud solutions meet enterprise security, compliance, and governance requirements. Mentor engineers across DevOps, cloud, and backend disciplines to elevate team capability and technical maturity. Required Professional Skills & Experience Technical Expertise Requires minimum 5 years related work experience as an Architecture Practitioner Strong background in application architecture, distributed systems, and API design. Proficiency with architecting, developing, and operating Azure services. Hands‑on experience with DevOps tooling such as GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar. Leads early‑stage technical validation through hands‑on proof‑of‑concepts, evaluating architectural options, mitigating risks of key assumptions, and translating experimental findings into actionable recommendations for project direction. Designs and governs application data models and integration schemas, ensuring consistency, data quality, and alignment with enterprise data governance standards across systems and domains. Operational knowledge of Infrastructure‑as‑Code (Terraform, Bicep, ARM) and environment automation. Solid backend development experience in languages such as C#, Java, Python, or Node.js.. Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes). Understanding of security, networking, identity, and governance frameworks. Experience with monitoring, application instrumentation, and observability tools (Dynatrace, Splunk, Log Analytics, Prometheus, Grafana). Leadership & Collaboration Ability to influence engineering teams and drive adoption of architectural standards. Strong communication skills for translating complex technical concepts to diverse audiences. Documentation of technical architecture and strategies. Experience guiding teams through SDLC processes, release management, and quality practices. Proven ability to lead modernization and cloud migration initiatives. Preferred Qualifications Azure certifications (AZ‑305, AZ‑400, AZ‑104, etc.). Experience with event‑driven architectures, messaging systems, or domain‑driven design. Background in enterprise‑scale transformation or platform engineering. Education Bachelor's Degree: Computer Science, MIS or related field (Required) Master's Degree: Computer Science, MIS or related field (Preferred) or a combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge to a major in such fields is required Work Location – Taylor, TX: Employees will be required to be on-site in Taylor, TX at a minimum of 2 days per week, or more, as needed based on the business needs as determined by management On-site schedules are flexible or may be rotated based on business needs as determined by the Manager Remote work is required to be performed from your Texas residence. Employees may opt to work on-site more than required or 100% of the time #LI-DN ERCOT is firmly committed to equal employment for all qualified persons without regard to race, sex, medical condition, religion, age, creed, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, ancestry, veteran status, genetic information or any other protected category under federal, state or local law. Expected Salary Range: $135,000 - $185,000