AI/ML Platform Architect

About ICA

International Consulting Associates, Inc. (ICA) is a rapidly growing, woman-owned small business located in the Washington, D.C. Metro area. Founded in 2009, we partner with federal agencies and large government services primes to achieve their mission-critical objectives. We're a trusted advisor, delivering cutting-edge innovation and solutions in three key areas: Research and Data Analysis, Advanced Data Science, and Strategic Services. Our current focus is on supporting multiple analytics and research programs across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the FDA.

At ICA, we believe our success starts with our people. We foster a collaborative "one-team" environment where work-life balance is prioritized. We're building dynamic, highly skilled teams in a welcoming and supportive atmosphere. If you're passionate about using your technical expertise to make a difference in federal healthcare, we want to talk to you.

About the Role

ICA is seeking an exceptional Software Engineer Architect to lead the design and implementation of a next-generation, AI/ML-driven data science platform for a key federal health client (within HHS/FDA). This platform will be a cornerstone for advanced analytics, enabling the processing of vast amounts of unstructured data to derive critical insights that will improve healthcare outcomes and advance biomedical research and regulatory science.

As the technical architect, you will be the driving force behind the platform's architecture, ensuring it is scalable, secure, resilient, and aligned with the client's strategic objectives. You will collaborate closely with client stakeholders (including the FDA), data scientists, and a team of engineers (including the Senior Software Engineer) to translate requirements into a robust and well-documented technical design. This role demands a deep understanding of cloud-native architectures (specifically AWS), modern web application development patterns, and the integration of machine learning capabilities into production systems.

You'll have the opportunity to shape the technical direction of a mission-critical system, mentor team members, establish best practices, and make a meaningful impact on public health through innovative architecture and design.

About You

You are a seasoned architect with a proven track record of designing and delivering complex, data-intensive systems. You are a strategic thinker, able to balance long-term vision with immediate project needs. You possess exceptional communication and leadership skills, enabling you to effectively articulate your architectural vision to both technical and non-technical audiences. You are passionate about leveraging technology to solve real-world problems and are excited to contribute to a project that will have a significant impact on federal healthcare. You thrive in a collaborative environment and are adept at mentoring and guiding engineering teams. You are proactive in identifying and mitigating architectural risks.

Key Responsibilities:

• Architectural Design: Design and document the overall architecture of the AI/ML platform, including data ingestion, processing, storage, analysis, and presentation layers. This includes making key technology choices and defining integration patterns.

• Technology Leadership: Lead the selection and evaluation of technologies, frameworks, and tools. Stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies to ensure the platform remains cutting-edge.

• AWS Expertise: Leverage your deep understanding of AWS services to create a cost-effective, scalable, and secure cloud-native architecture. This includes utilizing services such as S3, Keycloak, Aurora, Amplify, Lambda, Glue, and potentially others relevant to data science and machine learning.

• Data Modeling: Design the data model for the platform, considering both structured and unstructured data sources, and ensuring data quality, integrity, and governance.

• API Design: Define the APIs for interaction between platform components and external systems, ensuring they are well-documented, secure, and performant.

• Collaboration: Work closely with client stakeholders (including FDA representatives) to understand requirements, present architectural options, and gather feedback. Collaborate effectively with data scientists and engineers to ensure the architecture meets their needs.

• Mentorship: Provide technical guidance and mentorship to the engineering team, fostering a culture of architectural excellence.

• Documentation: Create comprehensive architectural documentation, including diagrams, technical specifications, and design patterns.

• Risk Management: Identify and mitigate potential architectural risks and challenges.

• Compliance: Ensure the architecture adheres to relevant federal regulations and security standards (e.g., FISMA, HIPAA – mention these if applicable).

• Roadmap Development: Create and maintain a technical roadmap for the platform, outlining future enhancements and capabilities.

• Proof-of-Concepts: Develop proof-of-concept implementations for critical components or new technologies to validate architectural decisions.

• DevSecOps: Advocate for and implement DevSecOps principles, ensuring security is integrated throughout the development lifecycle.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (Master's degree strongly preferred).

• 7+ years of software development experience.

• 5+ years of experience in architectural roles, designing and building large-scale, distributed systems.

• Expert-level knowledge of AWS cloud architecture and services, including:

  • Core Services: S3, Lambda, IAM, VPC

  • Database: Aurora (PostgreSQL), DynamoDB (advantageous)

  • Serverless/Compute: Amplify, Lambda, Glue, ECS/EKS/Fargate

  • Authentication: Keycloak (or Cognito)

  • Data Science/ML: SageMaker, Comprehend, Textract, Rekognition 

• AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification (required).

• Proven experience designing and implementing data-intensive applications and platforms.

• Strong understanding of microservices architecture and design patterns.

• Strong understanding of security architecture principles and best practices.

• Experience with containerization (Docker) and container orchestration (Kubernetes, ECS, or Fargate).

• Experience with API design and development (RESTful APIs).

• Experience with data modeling and database design (SQL and NoSQL).

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).

• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.

• Experience working in an Agile development environment.

Highly Desirable (Bonus Points):

• Experience working with federal health data or in a regulated environment (FISMA).

• Experience with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and related technologies.

• Experience with data visualization tools (e.g., AWS QuickSight, Tableau).

• Experience with event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis).

• Experience with big data technologies (e.g., Spark, Hadoop).

• Familiarity with the specific technologies used in the project: React, Material UI, Django, PostgreSQL.

Clearance Requirement:

• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance (or higher, if required by the client).

Nice to Have:

• Familiarity with Agile methodologies in government settings

• Background in natural language processing or computer vision

• Prior experience working with FDA or other federal health agencies