Senior Cloud Architect - AWS, GCP

Arctiq is a leader in professional IT services and managed services across three core Centers of Excellence: Enterprise Security, Modern Infrastructure and Platform Engineering. Renowned for our ability to architect intelligence, we connect, protect, and transform organizations, empowering them to thrive in today's digital landscape. Arctiq builds on decades of industry expertise and a customer-centric ethos to deliver exceptional value to clients across diverse industries.

This team serves as a strategic technology partner to the business, leading the development of digital strategies, enterprise architectures, and transformation initiatives that align business objectives with scalable technical roadmaps and solutions. The Senior Manager, Architecture will play a critical role in advancing the enterprise platform architecture strategy, with a focus on platform standardization, landing zone optimization, automation, and reducing operational complexity across datacenter, private cloud, and public cloud environments. This individual will help shape scalable, resilient, and high-performing platform capabilities while driving operational efficiency, modernization, and enterprise-wide technology innovation through automation and modern engineering practices.

This is a contract-to-hire opportunity for one of Arctiq's clients requiring onsite presence five days/week in one of these locations in Ontario: Mississauga, Kitchener Waterloo, Richmond Hill

Key Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Strategy

• Design, evaluate, and enhance landing zone architectures across datacenter, private cloud, and public cloud environments to improve consistency, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Develop consolidation and standardization strategies that simplify enterprise platform architectures while maintaining business functionality.
• Lead automation initiatives and framework development to reduce operational overhead and improve platform management capabilities.
• Apply Well-Architected Framework principles and conduct architecture reviews in partnership with engineering and platform teams.
• Establish enterprise reference architectures, reusable design patterns, and platform standards.
• Drive adoption and implementation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies and automation best practices.
  

Platform Optimization & Operational Excellence

• Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance across core infrastructure domains including networking, storage, CI/CD, and cloud platform services.
• Lead initiatives focused on landing zone consolidation, platform optimization, and cloud cost management.
• Define and track KPIs and operational metrics to measure platform utilization, effectiveness, and performance.
• Reduce operational complexity by improving automation coverage and minimizing platform variation across the enterprise.
• Contribute to enterprise operational excellence through scalable architecture solutions and modernization efforts.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Partner closely with engineering, infrastructure, cloud, and operations teams to align platform strategies with organizational objectives.
• Lead and influence enterprise-wide architectural initiatives in large, fast-paced environments.
• Drive technical decision-making and collaborate with stakeholders across multiple teams and business units.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Networking, or a related technical discipline.
• Industry certifications are strongly preferred, including:
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
  • Google Cloud Certified – Professional Cloud Architect
  • Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Experience

• 5–10+ years of enterprise experience in Platform Architecture, with significant focus on cloud architecture and large-scale platform design.
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise platform transformation initiatives and cross-functional technical programs.
• Strong background designing architectures across datacenter, private cloud, and public cloud ecosystems.

Technical Expertise

Cloud & Platform Technologies

• Strong expertise in cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud Platform.
• Deep understanding of landing zone architecture, platform governance, and enterprise cloud services.
• Experience with modern software architecture principles, microservices, DevOps practices, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience modernizing or migrating legacy enterprise architecture patterns is highly desirable.

Containers & Automation

• Expertise with Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms such as Anthos and GKE.
• Advanced knowledge of Infrastructure as Code tools including Terraform, CloudFormation, or equivalent technologies.
• Strong focus on automation, scalability, and platform engineering best practices.

Networking & Security

• Strong understanding of SDN, load balancing, networking architecture, and network security principles.
• Familiarity with enterprise security frameworks, governance standards, and compliance requirements.

Leadership Capabilities

• Strategic mindset with the ability to define and execute long-term architecture and platform roadmaps.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven ability to influence technical direction and enterprise architecture decisions across multiple teams and organizations.