Architect – Infrastructure & Policy Automation

Additional Information

Bethesda MD

Pay Range

$127000-$220000 annually Remote

Pay Range

$119000-$206000 annually Job Number 26097531 Job Category Information Technology

Location

7750 Wisconsin Ave Bethesda Maryland United States 20814 VIEW ON MAP Schedule Full Time Located Remotely? Y Position Type Management Bonus Eligible Y Stock Package Y Expiration Date 09/01/2026

Job Summary

As a member of an agile scrum team the Infrastructure Platform Engineering Architect will design and build production-grade platform services that enable developers to provision and operate infrastructure through well-defined APIs and automation. A core responsibility of this role is developing maintaining and advancing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) capabilities leveraging tools such as Terraform and policy as code frameworks to automate infrastructure provisioning management and policy. The architect should be able to craft a vision informed by deep experience and industry best practices to design and integrate platform automation in alignment with enterprise KPIs and be hands-on contributing to code documentation and planning to execute this vision. This position is ideal for a Platform Engineering Architect who has built and operated backend services and expanded into infrastructure/platform engineering. You will apply software engineering best practices (API design testing versioning reliability and maintainability) to an internal infrastructure and policy orchestration API the automation it drives and IaC modules and workflows. You will also partner closely with infrastructure security and developer experience teams to deliver secure compliant observable and scalable capabilities that abstract cloud complexity behind simple well-documented interfaces. CANDIDATE PROFILE

Required Qualifications

Undergraduate degree in an engineering or computer science discipline and/or equivalent experience/certification 8+ years’ progressive technology experience with a blend of deep technical knowledge and a customer-focused mindset that includes 5+ years’ experience designing building and operating backend services and APIs in production (platform developer tooling or internal services). 5+ years’ experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform preferred) and building automation around it (modules remote state and versioning). 5+ years’ experience with Public Cloud technology stacks such as AWS Azure GCP or Alibaba. 5+ years’ experience driving highly technical architecture and driving outcomes with automation 3+ years’ experience with CI/CD platforms (Harness preferred) and automating build/test/security/deploy/release pipelines. 5+ years’ experience designing building and operating GitOps processes. 5+ years in an engineering role as a strategic thinker that relates technology solutions to customer use cases Hands-on experience designing and developing APIs/services using languages such as Go or Python including RESTful design request/response modeling and service integration. Experience designing service contracts and developer-facing interfaces (OpenAPI/Swagger SDKs/clients schema evolution and backward compatibility). Strong software engineering fundamentals (data structures/algorithms clean code design patterns and code reviews). Experience building reliable services (e.g. retries idempotency timeouts rate limiting circuit breakers) and debugging distributed systems. Strong testing discipline (unit/integration tests contract tests and CI/CD automation for application code). Deep knowledge of infrastructure concepts and cloud fundamentals (networking IAM compute storage) with the ability to collaborate effectively with infrastructure engineers. Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to debug complex production issues across services and infrastructure.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with workflow orchestration and asynchronous/distributed systems (e.g. Temporal) including retries idempotency and failure handling. Experience building or contributing to platform services internal developer platforms (IDPs) or service-oriented architectures that expose infrastructure capabilities via APIs. Experience with API security patterns (authentication/authorization secrets management and audit logging) and enterprise integration requirements. Production experience with observability (structured logging metrics tracing) on-call practices SLOs/SLIs and incident response. Proven experience implementing automated testing frameworks for Terraform code (e.g. Terratest). Experience with policy as code (Open Policy Agent/OPA) and implementing guardrails for security compliance and governance. 3+ years’ Experience with Kubernetes containers and/or service mesh ecosystems. Contributions to open-source software (platform tooling or infrastructure projects). Excellent technical knowledge of current & emerging infrastructure systems & standards. Ability to create constructive relationships influence and communicate (to product team engineering management and non-technical staff). CORE WORK ACTIVITIES Platform Architecture & API Strategy Define and evolve the architecture for internal infrastructure and policy orchestration APIs ensuring scalability reliability and ease of consumption across engineering teams. Establish clear API contracts versioning strategies and backward compatibility standards for platform services. Define and enforce architectural boundaries between platform services and developer-facing orchestration layers establishing stable well-defined APIs ensuring clean separation of concerns and minimizing coupling that enable independent team velocity. Drive alignment with internal developer platform and orchestration teams to standardize integration patterns and service ownership models. Infrastructure & Policy Automation Strategy Define and drive the enterprise strategy for Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and policy-as-code (OPA) including module lifecycle testing frameworks enforcement points and integration into platform workflows. Establish and standardize reusable production-grade infrastructure modules and automation patterns designed for scale and enterprise adoption. Lead the design of infrastructure workflows and orchestration patterns that abstract cloud complexity behind simplified APIs and automation. Standards Governance & Guardrails Define and implement “Guardrails as Code” by translating security compliance and governance requirements into enforceable reusable policy frameworks using OPA. Establish governance models for infrastructure provisioning policy enforcement and platform consumption across the enterprise. Define and maintain “Golden Paths” (opinionated pre-approved infrastructure patterns informed by Enterprise Architectures) to drive standardization reduce drift and accelerate delivery. Partner with Security Compliance Enterprise Architecture and Cloud Foundations teams to ensure platform capabilities meet enterprise control requirements. Platform Adoption & Enablement Drive adoption of platform services across engineering teams enabling the transition from direct cloud access to API-driven infrastructure provisioning models via the Internal Development Platform. Define onboarding strategies adoption roadmaps and enablement plans to ensure successful platform rollout at scale. Develop high-quality documentation reference architectures and training materials that promote self-service and consistent usage patterns. Engage with engineering teams to gather feedback identify gaps and continuously improve platform usability and effectiveness. Continuously evolve platform capabilities based on usage patterns developer feedback and operational insights to improve usability effectiveness and adoption. Operational Excellence & Reliability Define standards and best practices for reliability scalability performance and observability of platform services and infrastructure automation. Establish expectations for production readiness including CI/CD testing strategies monitoring alerting and incident response. Drive improvements to platform performance and reliability through continuous evaluation and optimization. Technical Leadership & Cross-Team Influence Partner closely with the Technical Product Owner to decompose platform initiatives into well-defined distributable workstreams while providing technical guidance and direction to engineers to ensure coordinated delivery against overall team objectives. Serve as a technical authority for platform architecture and infrastructure automation guiding design decisions across multiple teams. Lead architecture and design reviews for platform services infrastructure modules and policy frameworks. Provide mentorship and technical leadership to engineers promoting best practices in platform engineering API design and infrastructure automation. Influence enterprise technology direction by evaluating emerging trends and recommending platform-level improvements. MANAGING PROJECTS AND PRIORITIES Collaborate closely with other leads on defining and driving the technical roadmap for platform engineering capabilities aligning with enterprise priorities and developer needs. Define priorities plans and resource requirements to deliver platform initiatives at scale and on schedule. Balance long-term platform investments with short-term delivery needs ensuring sustainable evolution of platform capabilities. Drive cross-team coordination and prioritization across platform engineering security compliance and developer experience teams. Analyze current environments and identify gaps inefficiencies or risks recommending scalable solutions for improvement. DELIVERING ON THE NEEDS OF KEY STAKEHOLDERS Partner with stakeholders across Security Compliance Enterprise Architecture Cloud Foundations and other Platform teams to align on standards policy enforcement and platform capabilities. Translate enterprise requirements (security compliance cost and operational needs) into scalable platform abstractions and automation. Communicate technical concepts platform capabilities and architectural decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. Drive alignment across teams by influencing architecture decisions and promoting standardized approaches to infrastructure and policy automation. At Marriott International we are dedicated to being an equal opportunity employer welcoming all and providing access to opportunity. We actively foster an environment where the unique backgrounds of our associates are valued and celebrated. Our greatest strength lies in the rich blend of culture talent and experiences of our associates.  We are committed to non-discrimination on any protected basis including disability veteran status or other basis protected by applicable law. All positions offer a 401(k) plan stock purchase plan discounts at Marriott properties commuter benefits employee assistance plan and childcare discounts.

Benefits

are subject to terms and conditions which may include rules regarding eligibility enrollment waiting period contribution benefit limits election changes benefit exclusions and others. Click here to learn more. Full-time positions also offer coverage for medical dental vision health care flexible spending account dependent care flexible spending account life insurance disability insurance accident insurance adoption expense reimbursements paid parental leave and educational assistance. Washington Applicants Only Employees will accrue paid sick leave 0.077 PTO balance for every hour worked and be eligible to receive a minimum of 9 holidays annually. Marriott HQ is committed to a hybrid work environment that enables associates to Be connected. Headquarters-based positions are considered hybrid for candidates within a commuting distance to Bethesda MD candidates outside of commuting distance to Bethesda MD will be considered for Remote positions. Marriott International is the world’s largest hotel company with more brands more hotels and more opportunities for associates to grow and succeed. Be where you can do your best work begin your purpose belong to an amazing global team and become the best version of you.