Principal IS Unix Architect

Roles & Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end architecture, engineering, and lifecycle management of enterprise Unix and Linux platforms, from technical strategy and standards through deployment, operations, modernization, and retirement.
• Act as the technical owner for large-scale Unix and Linux initiatives, driving architecture decisions, platform standardization, scalability, availability, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
• Architect scalable Unix platforms across Amgen’s data centers, AWS, Azure, or GCP, integrating virtualization, supporting container orchestration, storage, networking, and enterprise management tooling.
• Define and institutionalize architectural standards, validation controls, and governance frameworks for operating-system builds, configuration baselines, patching, vulnerability remediation, privileged access, audit readiness, and regulatory compliance.
• Advise senior technical leadership, security teams, and other architects and business stakeholders to present architectural options and tradeoffs based on service requirements and platform capabilities. Influence and help the Unix service owner achieve measurable improvements in reliability, performance, observability and operational efficiency.
• Establish and enforce best practices in platform engineering, infrastructure as code, configuration management, and DevSecOps, driving the platform architecture roadmap to continue improving automated provisioning, CI/CD, backup and recovery, configuration-drift control, Agentic AI and cost optimization.
• Drive capacity planning, performance engineering, and technology modernization, using workload trends, benchmarking, root-cause analysis, and controlled testing to improve system efficiency and reduce technical debt.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to L4 and L5 engineers through architecture reviews, automation and script reviews, complex troubleshooting, operational readiness assessments, and technical guidance.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration across Unix engineering, cloud, storage, network, database, middleware, cybersecurity, application, and service management teams to deliver integrated infrastructure solutions.
• Stay current with advancements in Unix technologies, automation, cloud-native infrastructure, observability, security, and lead the evaluation and adoption of technologies and architecture changes to improve platform resilience and supportability.
• Provide major incident escalation leadership and complex problem resolution for Unix services, coordinating technical teams, restoring service, identifying root causes, and ensuring corrective actions prevent recurrence.

Basic Qualifications

• Doctorate degree and 2 years of relevant experience OR Master’s degree and 4 years of relevant experience OR Bachelor’s degree and 6 years relevant experience OR Associate’s degree and 10 years relevant experience OR High school diploma / GED and 12 years relevant experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep expertise in enterprise Linux architecture, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, and or Amazon Linux, operating-system internals, system hardening, patching, upgrades, performance tuning, capacity management, reference architectures, technology roadmaps, architecture principles and standards.
• Strong Unix systems design, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to independently lead major technical initiatives, establish architectural and engineering standards, and resolve complex cross-platform incidents.
• Proven track record of designing, delivering, and supporting large-scale, highly available Unix and Linux platforms across physical, virtualized, and cloud environments, with expertise in clustering, disaster recovery, storage, networking, and service continuity.
• Advanced automation and scripting expertise using Ansible, Python, Shell/Bash, infrastructure as code, source control, and CI/CD practices to standardize builds, eliminate configuration drift, and automate provisioning and operational tasks.
• Demonstrated proficiency in AWS, Azure, or GCP infrastructure, virtualization, container platforms, enterprise monitoring, and security controls, with a strong understanding of resilient hybrid-cloud architecture and cost optimization.
• Proven ability to provide principal-level technical leadership, mentor junior and mid-level engineers, communicate with technical and business stakeholders, and coordinate effectively during major incidents.

Good-to-Have Skills

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Relevant industry certifications such as RHCE, AWS, Azure, GCP.
• Advanced experience with Ansible Automation Platform, Terraform, Puppet, or similar tools for enterprise-scale provisioning, configuration management, orchestration, and compliance automation.
• Experience designing and maintaining standardized operating-system images, automated build pipelines, configuration-as-code repositories, and policy-based validation controls.
• Experience with identity and access management, privileged access management, LDAP, Active Directory integration, Kerberos, certificates, and secrets management.
• Knowledge of security and compliance frameworks such as CIS benchmarks, vulnerability management, audit controls, and automated remediation.
• Working knowledge of enterprise middleware and database dependencies on Unix/Linux platforms, including performance, connectivity, patching, and startup or shutdown coordination.