NGES Chief Applications Architect (Consulting Level)

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work - and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history. Northrop Grumman's Enterprise Services (ES) sector is seeking a Chief Applications Architect at our Falls Church, VA corporate office with the possibility of teleworking. The Chief Applications Architect will be responsible within the ES organization for leading the on-going technical thought leadership and oversight for the NG corporate strategy for modernizing and rationalizing our current application portfolio and defining the future of our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), packaged Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), and internally developed application portfolio. This role focuses on business-centric applications with peers in other application domains. This individual will be a subject matter expert (SME) with a very strong depth of application-level experience with technical areas of expertise in public cloud computing (IaaS and PaaS) adoption, information security, end-to-end software factories and software architecture, and selection and integration of SaaS/COTS applications. The Chief Applications Architect must be capable of working across subject-matter experts and teams in application-focused organizations to continually refine a common technical vision and to communicate that technical vision within the organization and to executives. The Chief Applications Architect will take responsibility to drive the processes, onboarding, tools, and product capabilities necessary to identify, startup, develop, plan and execute offerings for the purposes of impacting business outcomes across NGC. Additionally, this self-starter, with strong executive presence, must be able to function in a fast-paced Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)-based environment and be able to adapt as innovation and change occurs. Responsibilities include: - Providing thought leadership for creating strategies that drive enterprise transformation activities with particular focus on governing, creating, and maintaining enterprise-wide architecture practices - Maintaining a holistic perspective of the organization's strategy, processes, and information and technology assets - Looking years ahead to consider the long-term consequences for the enterprise when choosing a technical direction, proposing a technology investment, proposing harmonization of the environments, proposing simplification opportunities, or advising a business leader on strategic issues - Interacting with corporate and sector CIOs, and other senior leaders, serving as an expert advisor in the development, implementation, and maintenance of enterprise-wide architecture practices - Assisting in preparing business cases and artifacts in support of application portfolio strategy in cooperation with our sector strategy team - Evaluating and recommending application architectures for the enterprise, to include providing expertise architecting, designing, engineering and migrating legacy infrastructure and applications to the Cloud; using industry best practice Agile-DevSecOps and containerization methodologies or strategies - Modern application architecture across SaaS integration, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) deployment, integration, and modernization, and leading architecture across the portfolio of internally-developed applications - Driving adoption of modern programming languages and modern authentication and authorization - Executing the API strategy and architecture across product teams - Facilitating the application architect forum which includes the application architect peer group - Supporting application portfolio management activities - Ensuring success of the application migrations and application modernization consistent with our multi-cloud strategy - Providing support to product teams and other company organizations for the rationalization of applications - Promoting adaptive design and modern engineering practices across the enterprise portfolio, facilitating the reuse of ideas, components, services, and proven patterns - Working closely with IT security to monitor and refine the corporation's security framework as it relates to software - Training and mentoring architects and engineers providing guidance and coaching and ensuring consistency with enterprise architecture tenants, Lean-Agile and tenets, user experience mindset, and cybersecurity requirements - Working with the team to build out prototypes of application environments in the cloud as proof of concepts, while building insight into what works and what doesn't work as well - Ensuring technical deliverables are completed accurately and on-time - Communicating with senior/executive leadership - Keeping abreast of new and emerging technologies and supporting a culture of continuous learning and experimentation Basic Qualifications: - BA/BS degree with a minimum of 20 years of experience, 18 years of experience with a MS degree, or 15 years of experience with a PhD - At least 10 years of application development and architecture including relevant hands-on experience - At least 5 years as a team or development lead, in enterprise-level programming languages including Java, C#/.NET, or Python - Demonstrated knowledge of current public cloud computing technologies and current computing trends including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure - Demonstrated familiarity with modern data architectures and technologies including enterprise database and integration - Hands-on experience designing and/or implementing cloud-based and/or cloud-native solutions in production workloads - Experience working in a DevSecOps environment with teams - Working knowledge and experience with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings, Kubernetes (K8s), and containers - Experience simplifying and communicating complicated technical architectures and concepts to management and other IT development partners - US Citizenship Preferred Qualifications: - Must be able to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance - Ability to work from Falls Church, VA location, although teleworking may be an option - Experience using Amazon Web Services and Azure, including using AWS and Azure native services (Azure App Services, Lambda, Cloud Formation, S3, API Gateways, etc.) - Experience as a technical leader in organization with advanced DevOps practices desired - Scaled Agile (SAFe) or relevant DevOps certifications desired - AWS or Microsoft Azure cloud certifications desired with preference for both - At least 3 years in enterprise cloud deployments desired - Understanding of Linux and Windows operating system - Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology or related field #LI-JH1 Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Annual bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results. Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives. In addition, Northrop Grumman provides a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business. The health and safety of our employees and their families is a top priority. With the continuing impacts of COVID-19 around the world, we are taking action to protect the health and well-being of our colleagues and maintain the safety of the communities where we operate. As a federal contractor, and consistent with Executive Order 14042 (https://www.saferfederalworkforce.gov/contractors/) we will require all newly hired employees in the United States to be fully vaccinated by January 18, 2022 or by your start date if it is after January 18th. Federal guidance allows for disability/medical and religious accommodations with respect to the vaccine requirement. Any requested accommodations must be reviewed and approved (if applicable) in advance of your start date.