Senior Mission Architect

Clarity Innovations is a trusted national security partner, dedicated to safeguarding our nation’s interests and delivering innovative solutions that empower the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD) to transform data into actionable intelligence, ensuring mission success in an evolving world.

Our mission-first software and data engineering platform modernizes data operations, utilizing advanced workflows, CI/CD, and secure DevSecOps practices. We focus on challenges in Information Warfare, Cyber Operations, Operational Security, and Data Structuring, enabling end-to-end solutions that drive operational impact.

We are committed to delivering cutting-edge tools and capabilities that address the most complex national security challenges, empowering our partners to stay ahead of emerging threats and ensuring the success of their critical missions. At Clarity, we are people-focused and set on being a destination employer for top talent, offering an environment where innovation thrives, careers grow, and individuals are valued. Join us as we continue to lead innovation and tackle the most pressing challenges in national security.

Role

The Senior Mission Architect (SMA) is responsible for delivery, solution architecture, and technical excellence within the program. This role blends technical expertise, operational context, and business acumen to ensure solutions align with customer mission needs. The SMA partners closely with the customer, other agency performers, and other technical teams to drive mission outcomes, provide senior technical leadership, and foster business growth.

The SMA works closely alongside both program and Clarity leadership to ensure the following outcomes:

1. The maximum fit between the capabilities delivered and the Customer’s desired mission outcomes
2. All program personnel understand the motivations and context behind their deliverables and can perform with the best possible mission understanding
3. Clarity personnel have the best business placement for creating mission outcomes
4. A collaborative and mutually accountable relationship with the Program Manager that enables our customers 

This pivotal role involves working alongside a team of 60-80 personnel designing, implementing, and managing a secure, classified OCO Platform that leverages a mixture of on-prem and cloud infrastructure, emphasizing security, resilience, and compliance with Department of Defense standards. The platform aims to support coordination and orchestration of complex cyber missions. The team utilizes a variety of software tools, to include COTS, GOTS, and FOSS, ensuring that our program delivers optimal solutions and remains at the forefront of technological advancements. Your leadership will not only influence the direction of our current projects but will also set the stage for future innovations, maintaining our commitment to cybersecurity and operational excellence in support of national security objectives.

The SMA collaborates with the technical leadership executing on-program work and is backed by a team of seasoned and knowledgeable architects within the company.

Key Responsibilities

1. Mission Alignment & Leadership
• Maintain currency in the customer’s mission and ensure the delivered capabilities align with desired outcomes.
• Provide senior technical leadership to guide teams, ensuring they understand the “why” behind deliverables.
• Anticipate Concept of Operations (CONOP) and technical challenges during requirements refinement and work with the team to ensure they are addressed.
• Guide engineering decisions based on the customer’s operational intent and mission needs.
• Collaborate closely with the Program Manager to maintain a mutually accountable relationship that enables success for our customers.
• Serve as a senior voice for mission and business growth, positioning Clarity to create impactful mission outcomes.
2. Customer Engagement
• Technical Influence: Leverage deep mission understanding to guide customer technical direction.
• Trusted Advisor: Build and maintain strong customer relationships; demonstrate credibility and reliability in meeting mission needs.
• Requirement Clarity: Understand and interpret customer requirements to guide program execution.
• Thought Leadership: Produce whitepapers, briefings, and diagrams that aid customer understanding and decision-making.
3. Business Development
• Partner with the Program Manager to spot growth opportunities based on customer needs and mission trends. Develop whitepapers, ROMs, and briefings to grow and support these opportunities.
• Work with Clarity Growth and Proposal Operations teams from initial identification through proposal submission, shaping solutions for maximum mission fit.
4. Innovation
• R&D Identification: Spot IR&D (Independent Research & Development) opportunities based on mission gaps or emerging needs.
• R&D Feedback: Serve as the “voice of the customer” to align IR&D projects to relevant mission areas.
• Prototyping: Employ tactical prototypes through Clarity Labs to demonstrate capabilities and drive business growth within the program.
5. Technical Excellence
• Collaborate with program leadership to define and communicate a clear technical vision for the program.
• Participate in engineering and design reviews for the program
• Review and Testing & Validation: Shape smoke testing and lab testing approaches for completeness and realism.
• Mentorship: Mentor technical team members in evaluating and debugging solutions under mission-relevant constraints.
6. Staffing
• Communicate the value proposition of joining the team to attract high-caliber candidates for critical roles.

Qualifications

• Mission Expertise
• Strong understanding of OCO and CNO development and operations, both on-net and off-net 
• Team Leadership
• Strong communication skills, both written and oral
• Strong interpersonal skills to effectively engage with various stakeholders (customers, PMs, team members, and senior leadership)
• Experience providing technical mentorship, formal or informal, to other team members
• People Management: Skilled in conflict resolution, mentoring, and developing technical leads and SMEs within the program’s domain.
• End-to-End Expertise: Comfortable moving from high-level architecture discussions down to hands-on debugging and development.
• Customer Engagement
• Trusted Relationships: Maintain strong rapport with key customer groups.
• Relevant Roles: Previous experience in key program roles (Tech Lead, Lead Engineer, Principal Investigator, Technical Director) within similar mission-focused environments.
• Operational Insight: Solid understanding of how the customer employs their systems operationally; able to influence those strategies effectively.
• Growth

• Experience contributing to technical proposals or similar efforts (e.g., technical white papers, rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimates)
• Proposal Success: Track record of supporting or leading successful proposals of similar scope and technical complexity.

• Product Ownership
• Experience translating customer requirements into actionable user stories/features
• Experience breaking down large features into demonstrable and valuable milestones
• Experience prioritizing and delegating tasks for at least a 5-member team
• Technical Expertise
• Familiarity and experience with the development and fielding of OCO capabilities
• Broad Technical Mastery: Capable of guiding engineering decisions across most critical technologies used in the program.
• Technical Delivery
• Experience delivering and managing capabilities in operational/production environments
• Experience leading software design and architecture
• Experience evaluating technologies and making informed decisions
• Strong understanding of at least one Agile methodology (e.g., Scrum, Kanban, SAFe)

 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Kubernetes cluster lifecycle (deployment, troubleshooting, scaling)
• Experience with container orchestration using Kubernetes (K8s)
• Experience in containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Podman)
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code Utilities (e.g., Crossplane, Pulumi, Terraform)
• Experience in Linux-based development environments (e.g., Ubuntu, RedHat Enterprise Linux, or derivatives)
• Experience developing and troubleshooting Internet-disconnected systems
• Experience writing Automated Tests (e.g., unit tests, acceptance tests, system/integration tests)
• Experience with a version control code repository, such as GitLab

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.