Job Description
Everforth ECS is seeking a Senior System Architect to work in the National Capital Region covering the Pentagon, Falls Church, and Fairfax. Please Note: This position is contingent upon contract award.
The War Data Platform (WDP) is a key initiative within the U.S. Department of War's (DoW) AI-First strategy introduced in early 2026. The WDP focuses on operational warfighting data and aims to accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) on the battlefield. The WDP extends to Unclassified, Secret, and Top Secret environments, and supports collaboration between Combatant Commands, Joint Staff directorates, Senior Executive Service leaders, and operational analysts.
The Senior System Architect serves as the technical authority for architectural vision, design governance, and solution integrity across the WDP Core Integration Agile Release Train, ensuring that system design decisions, integration patterns, and non-functional requirements are coherently embedded into agile planning and team-level execution across NIPRNet, SIPRNet, and JWICS environments. In this role, the Senior System Architect bridges strategic architectural direction and sprint-level engineering execution, coaching cross-functional teams on design principles, systems thinking, and disciplined engineering practices that reduce rework, improve integration predictability, and sustain mission-aligned delivery at enterprise scale.
• Provides technical and management leadership for the system architecture function supporting Agile software development.
• Guides the creation, communication, and stewardship of the architectural vision so that development, test, integration, staging, and production activities align with a coherent and stable system design.
• Works closely with Product Management, Release Train leadership, and cross-functional teams to ensure that architectural enablers, non-functional requirements, and integration patterns are understood, implementable, and properly sequenced within Program Increment planning.
• Supports backlog refinement by translating complex solution needs into clear architectural guidance, interface definitions, and integration patterns that enable predictable development flow within the Agile Release Train.
• Leads architecture reviews and governance activities to maintain design integrity, ensure interoperability, and uphold standards for security, scalability, and maintainability.
• Coordinates with cybersecurity, DevSecOps, data, and platform teams to validate that architectural decisions support compliance, resiliency, and observability requirements across the environments in which the solution operates.
• Oversees the development and maintenance of reference architectures, interface contracts, data models, and system diagrams that guide team-level execution.
• Facilitates collaboration among stakeholders by providing accessible architectural documentation, conducting walkthroughs, and maintaining ongoing communication throughout the development lifecycle.
• Monitors architectural work progress, integration outcomes, technical risk indicators, and dependencies to ensure alignment with Agile cadence expectations and to inform updates to burndown visualizations and program-level reporting.
• Addresses technical blockers by guiding teams through solution options, triaging design issues, and resolving conflicts that impact integration or solution cohesion.
• Produces architectural roadmaps, solution design narratives, governance artifacts, and decision records that support strategic planning and enable informed decision-making by program leadership.
• Fosters architectural competency within the teams by coaching on design principles, system-level thinking, and disciplined engineering practices that improve predictability, reduce rework, and enhance mission value throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Performs other duties as assigned.