Principal Solutions Architect (Remote)

Overview

Join a team where innovation meets mission. Our AI, cloud, cyber, and modernization solutions save agencies thousands of hours, safeguard national security, and strengthen health and humanitarian missions worldwide. With more than 1,700+ team members, 1,500+ AI & data experts, and 100+ prime contracts, we deliver at scale and with purpose.

We’ve been recognized as a Top Workplace by The Washington Post for six consecutive years and named to the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 13 of the past 14 years. Credence is a welcoming environment for those looking to grow and make a meaningful impact. We encourage employees to push boundaries and help solve critical, world-changing federal challenges.

Position Summary

We are growing our practice supporting the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and we have an immediate need for a Principal Solutions Architect to help us build and scale that work. This is a foundational technical hire.

As Principal Solutions Architect, you will own the end-to-end technical architecture for VA IT modernization programs — setting reference architectures, making platform and integration decisions, and validating solutions through delivery. You will partner directly with our VA practice lead (a former Deputy Chief Information Officer at VA) to shape our technical posture with VA customers.

This is a hands-on senior individual contributor role. You are a player-coach: still hands-on with code, reference architectures, and proofs of concept, while also representing Credence technically in customer meetings, capture activity, and strategy discussions. This is not a people-management role today — as the practice grows, you will naturally become the technical center of gravity for the engineers we hire, mentoring by credibility rather than by org chart.

While we scale up the VA practice, you will work from Credence's shared solutions architecture pool, supporting DoD delivery programs alongside your VA-focused capture work. Over time, your focus will shift primarily to VA as our pipeline converts.

Credence runs a flat, empowered capture and delivery culture. Senior technical leaders are active partners in winning work, not just delivering it. You should expect to wear many hats and to spend a meaningful portion of your first 12 months contributing to pre-award activity — technical volumes, oral presentations, RFI responses, and customer discovery.

What You'll Do:

Own architecture for VA IT programs: reference architectures, integration patterns, platform decisions, and roadmaps — with clear documentation of trade-offs.
Write proof-of-concept code and hands-on prototypes to de-risk architectural decisions and validate solutions before they reach customers.
Represent Credence technically to VA stakeholders (OIT, EHRM, VHA) — in RFI responses, oral presentations, and relationship-building touchpoints.
Contribute to capture strategy for VA opportunities — technical volume authorship, win-theme development, technical Q&A, and customer discovery.
Provide architectural guidance and technical mentorship to Credence engineering teams as they come into VA delivery work.
As the practice matures, review and validate solution designs from delivery teams against Credence's architectural standards and VA compliance requirements.
Partner with our VA practice lead on customer engagements and on positioning Credence's AI-native capabilities for VA modernization.
Document architectural decisions, integration contracts, and technical standards so engineering teams can execute against them with clarity.

Requirements

Required Qualifications:

Citizenship: US Citizen with the ability to obtain a successful Federal Background Investigation.
Experience: Minimum ten (10) years of hands-on technical experience. Bachelor's in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field; Master's preferred.
AI/ML. Direct, recent, hands-on experience using AI, Machine Learning, or Generative AI to solve real problems in production systems — not just familiarity. Examples of qualifying work: integrating LLM APIs into production systems, building RAG pipelines, designing MLOps infrastructure, fine-tuning or training models, or architecting agentic AI systems. Candidates without demonstrable AI/ML implementation work will not be considered. AI/ML depth will be evaluated — AI/ML is core to our value proposition to VA.
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Experience. Prior experience working at VA — as a VA employee or as a VA contractor — is required. General federal or DoD experience does not substitute.
Scale: Experience architecting at enterprise scale ($100M+ programs or equivalent complexity — multi-region production cloud, platforms serving tens of thousands of users, or systems integrating 20+ downstream applications) and comfort operating at task-order agility (bidding and delivering smaller task orders with short time-to-delivery).
Cloud: Deep experience with secure cloud architecture on AWS and/or Azure — service model selection (IaaS, PaaS), networking, identity, and federal cybersecurity controls (FedRAMP, NIST).
DevSecOps: Deep experience with DevSecOps principles and practices — CI/CD, automated testing, infrastructure as code, shift-left security.
Software Engineering breadth: API design, microservices, containerization, application development, Agile/SDLC.
Federal Resources Awareness: Familiarity with Federal Government reference architectures and security controls (FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, VA EHRM/OIT standards).
Technical Leadership: Proven ability to set architectural direction and mentor engineers through technical credibility and hands-on problem-solving.

Preferred Qualifications:

Healthcare informatics experience — VA, VHA, DoD healthcare.
DoD program experience (delivery or capture) — our practice supports both VA and DoD customers.
Experience with application portfolio inventories, application interdependency mapping, and modernization assessments.
Data analytics, SaaS, Low/No-Code platforms, or RPA.
Network engineering depth.

Additional Requirements:

Understanding of Agile, Service-Oriented Architecture, DevOps, Automated Testing and Deployment, Microservices, and Containerization.
Demonstrated experience designing and de-risking large, complex solutions — preferably in cloud and/or container environments.

Certifications:

Technical certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, or similar are valued but not required. Non-technical certifications (PMP, ITIL) are not weighted.

Communication & Soft Skills:

Excellent oral and written communication — comfortable briefing senior VA stakeholders and defending architectural decisions in technical review.
Critical thinking and the ability to look at problems from multiple angles.
Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward action in a fast-moving, capture-driven environment

Salary Range: $180,000.00 to $220,000.00annually. Actual compensation will be determined based on the selected candidate's experience, education, skills, and overall qualifications.

Please join us, as together we build a better world one mission at a time powered by Technology and its People!

Benefits

Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
Short Term & Long Term Disability
Training & Development
Work From Home
Free Food & Snacks
Wellness Resources

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First name, Last name, Email, Headline, Please list your full legal first and last name (e.g., John L. Smith II), Please provide your preferred first name, Phone, By providing a phone number and submitting this form you consent to receive SMS text messages from Credence LLC in accordance with our SMS Privacy Policy (https://credence-llc.com/careers/sms-privacy/) Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency may vary. Reply No, to STOP and opt out., Address, Photo, Education, Experience, List any work related certifications or licenses you currently possess, Please comment on how your prior education and experiences qualify you for the type of employment you are seeking., Summary, Resume, Please indicate which active clearances you have, If you have a security clearance not listed, please fill in., Cover letter, Type of work desired, What is your annual salary expectation? (Ranges are welcomed- non-answers may delay your consideration), What date are you available to join Credence as a new hire?, Are you legally authorized to work in the U.S. as a U.S. citizen or Fully Naturalized U.S. Citizen? , Do you currently or will you in the future, require an immigration sponsorship and/or a host for a work visa authorization (e.g., F1 or H-1B)? (if hired, verification will be required consistent with federal law.) , Are you at least 18 years old? (if no, you may be required to provide authorization to work) , How did you hear about us? Was it a job board or an employee? Do tell...., Have you ever worked for Credence before? If yes, what year and in what role?, Credence honors our Service Members and wonder if you are a Veteran or have Veteran status?, Credence honors our Service Members and their spouses, have you ever been a Military Spouse?, Do you have any relatives employed by this organization?, I have disclosed all information that is relevant and should be considered applicable to my candidacy for employment.   I understand, where permissible under applicable state and local law, I may be subject to a pre-employment drug test after receiving a conditional offer of employment, and must receive a negative result for illegal drug use before being permitted to commence work with Company. I understand, where permissible under applicable state and local law, I may be subject to a pre-employment medical examination after receiving a conditional offer of employment, and must meet the qualifications for the position, with or without reasonable accommodation, before being permitted to commence work with Company. I understand, where permissible under applicable state and local law, I may be subject to a pre-employment background check after receiving a conditional offer of employment to investigate my criminal background and other matters related to my suitability for employment. Initial to agree., I hereby certify that the information given by me is true in all respects. I authorize Company and its representatives to contact my prior employers and all others (with the exception of my current employer, only if I have marked "May we contact your present employer" on this application as "No") for the purpose of verification of the information I have supplied and release same from any liability resulting from the information released. I authorize employers, schools and other persons named on this application to provide any information or transcripts requested. Initials to agree, I understand employment with Company is also contingent on my providing sufficient documentation necessary to establish my identity and eligibility to work in the United States.   If employed, I understand that as a condition of employment that I may be required to agree to and sign a non-solicitation, non-disclosure, and/or other similar agreements. I also agree to notify the organization during the pre-employment process of any non-solicitation, non-disclosure, and/or other similar agreements that I may have already signed with current and former employers.   I expressly understand and agree that, if employed, my employment, having no specified term, is based upon mutual consent and may be terminated at-will, with or without cause, by either party (Company or me) without prior notice to the other, unless otherwise prohibited by law.   I understand that no representation, whether oral or written, by any representative or agent of Company, at any time, can constitute an implied or express contract of employment. I further understand no representative or agent of Company has the authority to enter into an agreement for employment for any specified period of time or to make any change in any policy, procedure, benefit or other terms or condition of employment other than in a document signed by an authorized representative.   I understand that the technical processing and transmission of the application, including my personal information, may involve (a) transmissions over various networks, including the transfer of this information to the United States and/or other countries for storage, processing and use by Company, its affiliates, and their agents; and (b) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks and devices. Accordingly, I agree to permit such parties to make such transmissions and changes, and hereby provide the necessary consent for the same. Initial to agree., Do you currently meet the worksite location requirements for being On-site or Hybrid as defined in the job description?, If “No”, are you willing to relocate to meet this requirement? Please note that candidates who are unable to work onsite or relocate will not meet the position requirements.

Do you have experience creating design and roadmaps federal enterprise data architecture migration solutions and technical analysis of existing and proposed infrastructure and technologies to determine ways to improve them? yes / no
Do you have experience developing a technical vision for solutions by mapping, designing, developing, and managing new or improved solutions? yes / no
Do you have experience providing Design concepts, recommendations and roadmaps for proposed data, cloud or DevSecOps solutions? yes / no
To work on this program, you will need to be a fully naturalized US Citizen without sponsorship and have the ability to obtain a successful Federal Background Investigation- do you meet that criteria? yes / no
Do you meet the experience and education requirement of having a minimum of ten (10) years of related experience and/or a Master's degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering? yes / no
Do you have experince working with the US Department of Veterans Affairs? yes / no

Principal Solutions Architect (Remote)

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