Datacenter Architect

Trace3, Linthicum Heights, MD +1

The role

The Regional Senior Principal Engineer/Enterprise Architect IV serves serves as a customer-facing technical lead for the discovery, architecture, design, and modernization of secure on-premises and hybrid datacenter environments. The role translates mission objectives, business requirements, workload needs, operational constraints, and security obligations into practical, supportable architectures for regulated and mission-critical customers.

The role requires broad, hands-on architecture knowledge across compute, networking, storage, virtualization, containers, automation, cybersecurity, Zero Trust Architecture, AI infrastructure, and Microsoft GCC-High hybrid-cloud solutions. Success requires strong technical judgment, analytical and project-management skills, executive presence, and the ability to communicate effectively with customers, engineers, partners, and sales teams.

All jobs

Datacenter Architect

Trace3, Linthicum Heights, MD +1

Posted pay

$185K–$198K

a year

Compared with similar jobs

This base pay is above the median for software engineering jobs in other US places with no level in the job title.

Median: $160K a year
Other jobs in the group: 2,209

We compare the middle of each posted range. This is base pay as posted. The group does not include this job.

Location: Linthicum Heights, MD +1
Work type: Not given
Level: Not given
Skills in the job text: Kubernetes
Azure
Terraform
Ansible
Posted: Sep 16, 2026
Last check: 10 h ago
Job type: Software engineering, Inference & ML systems, ML / AI engineering

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Trace3

Open tech jobs: 39
With posted pay: 85%
Median posted base: $170K–$200K

About Trace3: funding, hiring and pay

Trace3

About Trace3: funding, hiring and pay

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The role

What you need

Demonstrated experience as a customer-facing technical lead, enterprise architect, solutions architect, principal engineer, or equivalent for complex datacenter or infrastructure modernization initiatives.
Substantive architecture experience across the modern datacenter stack, including x86 compute, accelerated/GPU compute, servers, HCI or converged infrastructure, switching and routing, storage, backup and disaster recovery, virtualization, containers, management platforms, monitoring, and physical datacenter considerations.
Strong knowledge of virtualization architecture, including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or comparable hypervisor technologies; clustering, high availability, resource management, encryption, lifecycle management, and migration considerations.
Working knowledge of Kubernetes and enterprise container platforms, including control-plane and worker-node design, registries, namespaces, resource isolation, cluster operations, and platform security.
Strong networking knowledge, including Ethernet and high-speed datacenter fabrics, VLANs, VRFs, routing, segmentation, out-of-band management, microsegmentation, software-defined networking, and network performance for AI and data-intensive workloads.
Strong storage and data-protection knowledge across block, file, and object storage; all-flash and scale-out architectures; RAID or erasure coding; performance tiers; backup, replication, disaster recovery, and recovery objectives.
Practical experience with infrastructure automation and lifecycle management using technologies such as Terraform, Ansible, APIs, configuration-management platforms, CI/CD, GitOps, and policy-driven provisioning.
Applied knowledge of Zero Trust Architecture, including identity and federation, MFA, RBAC/ABAC, privileged access, microsegmentation, endpoint and workload protection, encryption in transit and at rest, PKI, HSM/KMS concepts, SIEM integration, observability, and vulnerability management.
Experience designing or integrating hybrid-cloud architectures involving Microsoft Azure Government and Microsoft GCC-High, including secure connectivity, identity, workload placement, data protection, governance, and operational integration with on-premises environments.
Ability to conduct structured discovery, assess current-state environments, identify gaps and risks, estimate capacity and growth, and convert findings into reference architectures and actionable roadmaps.
Excellent written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, and technical-diagramming skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with customers, executives, engineers, cybersecurity professionals, program managers, partners, and sales teams.
Ability to work across multiple technology domains without relying solely on a single-vendor specialty; relevant vendor certifications or equivalent hands-on expertise are desirable.
Ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, travel to customer or partner locations as needed, and maintain technical credibility throughout the sales, design, and delivery lifecycle.
Initial 6‑month contract with strong potential for extension and possible conversion to a long-term full-time role.
No active clearance required at start; however, candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a security clearance.
Hybrid environment with on-site requirements still being finalized.
Work may be performed at multiple Baltimore-area customer locations, and candidates should be flexible regarding worksite assignment and on-site frequency.

LOCATION: Full Time/ On-Site in Linthicum Heights, MD or Annapolis Junction, MD

CLEARANCE REQUIRMENT: Eligibility to obtain Government clearance

Datacenter Architect

The role

Datacenter Architect

The role

What you need

Street-Smart - Thriving in Dynamic Times

Teamwork - Humble, Hungry and Smart

Summary of essential job functions

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to

Estimated Pay Range

The Perks

About Trace3

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