Lead Technical Architect - Microservices & AI

Program Context & Team

• Division: CIO Division
• The Project: Supporting a major business application transformation program to establish Department's first enterprise Microservices and Event-Driven Architecture foundations while embedding AI-enabled engineering practices across the software delivery lifecycle.
• Organizational Mission: Drives sustainable growth, innovation, and productivity across Australian industries through enterprise technology and policy delivery.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

• Technical & Architectural Leadership: Serve as the architectural authority for designing, governing, and evolving cloud-native, microservices-based, and AI-enabled platforms aligned with security and business goals.
• SDLC & AI Practices: Establish modern engineering standards including AI-enabled SDLC, DevSecOps, CI/CD, observability, platform engineering, and automated testing.
• Modernization & Adoption: Drive system integration, containerization, microservices enhancements, and reusable design patterns to improve resilience and scalability.
• Capability Building: Uplift team maturity and foster engineering excellence through knowledge transfer, governance, and technical leadership across multidisciplinary teams.

Essential Criteria

1. Microservices Architecture: Extensive experience designing, implementing, and governing cloud-native, microservices, and event-driven architectures in complex enterprise environments.
2. AI Solution Delivery: Demonstrated expertise in AI engineering, including semantic search, machine learning solutions, responsible AI practices, and enterprise deployment.
3. Software & Platform Engineering: Strong technical foundation in modern frameworks, DevSecOps, CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and security-by-design.
4. Technology Modernization: Proven track record leading enterprise transformation initiatives, influencing architectural decisions, and delivering measurable performance improvements.
5. Stakeholder Engagement & Leadership: Exceptional communication and leadership capabilities, with proven experience collaborating with delivery partners, multidisciplinary teams, and senior executives.

Desirable Criteria

1. Container Platforms: Hands-on experience designing and operating container platforms (Kubernetes, OpenShift, AKS, EKS, or GKE), including platform automation and workload management.
2. SRE & Cloud Modernization: Background in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), platform engineering, enterprise-scale automation, and observability tools.
3. Agile & Team Coaching: Experience leading Agile delivery, coaching geographically dispersed teams, and driving capability uplift across an organization.

For more information on this role or others like this in the market apply below or contact chessan.fernando @mane.com.au