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Role Summary We are seeking a Sr. Principal Architect to lead the architecture, design, and evolution of ONAP‑based orchestration solutions across large‑scale, cloud‑native telecom environments. This role serves as a technical authority for service orchestration, automation, and standardization, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, future‑ready, and aligned with industry standards. In addition to responsibilities in production‑grade orchestration implementation and rollout, the successful candidate will support proof‑of‑concept (PoC) initiatives in emerging technologies, including AI/ML‑assisted automation, and translate successful innovations into standardized, production‑ready architectures. ## Key Responsibilities - Act as the technical lead for ONAP‑based orchestration platforms, defining architecture, integration patterns, and lifecycle design. - Lead end‑to‑end orchestration solutions across service design, decomposition, provisioning, configuration, and assurance. - Define and govern architectures using ONAP service orchestration concepts, policy‑driven automation, and API‑centric integrations. - Ensure alignment with enterprise reference architectures, provisioning standards, and operational models. - Drive/Support proof‑of‑concept (PoC) initiatives for emerging technologies relevant to orchestration and automation - Evaluate new tools, frameworks, and architectures through structured PoCs and technical assessments. - Define success criteria, architecture patterns, and scalability considerations to transition PoCs into production‑grade solutions. - Collaborate with internal teams and suppliers to industrialize innovation outcomes aligned to platform roadmaps. - Ensure orchestration solutions align with industry standards and frameworks, including: TM Forum (Open APIs, Frameworx, SID, ODA principles), ETSI NFV and cloud‑native telecom guidelines - Drive standardization of service models, APIs, workflows, and integration patterns across the orchestration ecosystem. - Balance adherence to standards with pragmatic delivery, ensuring interoperability and future extensibility. - Represent architectural positions in standardization discussions, internal governance forums, and supplier engagements. - Lead service modeling and decomposition using TOSCA‑based models to enable reusable and versioned orchestration. - Define orchestration workflows, control loops, and policies to support hybrid, cloud‑native, and virtualized network services. - Ensure consistency between service definitions, orchestration workflows, and runtime behavior. - Identify design gaps, integration risks, and automation inconsistencies early in the development lifecycle. - Collaborate with suppliers and internal engineering teams to convert business and operational requirements into clear technical designs. - Review and validate supplier deliverables for alignment with ONAP architecture principles, standards, and non‑functional requirements. - Participate in architectural reviews, cross‑functional working sessions, and governance forums. - Provide architectural guidance throughout development, integration, and deployment phases. - Support the full lifecycle of orchestration capabilities—from design and build through testing, UAT, production rollout, and stabilization. - Ensure solutions meet scalability, availability, performance, and security expectations. - Apply strong understanding of distributed system design, failure modes, and fault‑tolerant architectures. - Identify and remediate single points of failure through redundancy and scale‑out strategies. - Continuously assess and optimize orchestration performance and reliability. - Drive adoption of cloud‑native engineering best practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure automation. - Conduct architecture and code reviews to ensure quality, maintainability, and consistency with defined standards. - Produce high‑quality documentation including solution designs, service models, workflows, and operational guidelines. - Mentor architects and engineers, supporting capability development and technical maturity across teams. ## Qualifications & Experience (Required) - 15+ years of experience in telecom OSS, service orchestration, solution architecture, and large‑scale distributed systems. - Deep hands‑on expertise with ONAP architecture, including service orchestration workflows, service modeling, policy‑driven automation, and API‑based integration. - Proven experience owning the end‑to‑end development lifecycle, from architecture and design through build, CI/CD, UAT, and production rollout. - Strong understanding of networking fundamentals, SDN/NFV concepts, and end‑to‑end service provisioning logic. - Extensive experience designing and building cloud‑native, microservices‑based systems using Docker, Kubernetes, and modern container platforms. - Strong background in distributed system design, including identification and mitigation of single points of failure, high availability, fault tolerance, and resilience patterns. - Proven ability to analyze and optimize system performance, scalability, and reliability in high‑scale environments. - Hands‑on experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and DevOps practices. - Strong development background in Java and/or Python, with experience across distributed and multithreaded systems (exposure to Groovy, Kotlin, or C/C++ is a plus). - Solid understanding of SOLID principles, design patterns, and scalable software architecture. - Expertise in database modeling and architecture, covering both relational and NoSQL data stores. - Ability to conduct architecture and code reviews and produce high‑quality technical documentation. - Hands‑on experience with service modeling languages such as TOSCA (YANG, Netconf/RESTconf exposure is a plus). - Experience designing orchestration and integration solutions across hybrid and multi‑cloud environments. - Strong understanding of industry standards and frameworks, particularly TM Forum and ETSI‑aligned architectures, with the ability to apply them pragmatically. - Contributions to open‑source platforms or standards bodies are a strong plus. - Proven ability to lead innovation initiatives and proof‑of‑concepts (PoCs), translating emerging technologies into production‑ready solutions. - Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into cloud‑native, microservices‑based platforms to enhance orchestration, assurance, and automation. - Understanding of AI pipelines, including data ingestion, feature engineering, model inference, and feedback loops. - Familiarity with event‑driven architectures enabling AI‑driven decisioning and closed‑loop automation. - Ability to define reference architectures for AI‑enabled OSS platforms, aligned with enterprise governance and industry standards. - Demonstrated leadership in vendor collaboration, architectural governance, roadmap planning, and budget‑aware decision‑making. - Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence engineering, operations, suppliers, and senior leadership. - Ability to operate effectively at both strategic and hands‑on levels, providing architectural direction while engaging in execution when needed. - Proven experience building, mentoring, and scaling high‑performing technical teams. - Forward‑looking, innovation‑oriented architecture mindset with strong systems thinking. - Excellent analytical and problem‑solving capabilities. - Strong communication, collaboration, and decision‑making skills. - Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast‑evolving technology environments. - High attention to detail, quality orientation, and ability to perform under pressure and meet deadlines ## Preferred / Good to Have - Experience applying AI/ML techniques within orchestration, assurance, or automation domains. - Familiarity with intent‑based networking and closed‑loop automation models. - Exposure to event‑driven architectures and streaming platforms. - Experience contributing to standards bodies, open‑source initiatives, or architecture communities. - Experience working with global delivery teams and large telecom environments.
