Cloud Architect

Job Posting Organization:
INTERPOL is the world's largest international police organization, established in 1923, with a mission to facilitate cross-border police cooperation and support organizations, authorities, and services in combating international crime. With 196 member countries, INTERPOL aims to create a diverse and inclusive workforce, encouraging applications from individuals with varied backgrounds and experiences. The organization follows a merit-based recruitment process, ensuring that hiring decisions are based on qualifications and organizational needs.

Job Overview:
The Cloud Architect position at INTERPOL involves ensuring the consistency, scalability, and sustainability of cloud-native and hybrid infrastructures in alignment with the ICT strategy and governance. Reporting to the Head of Engineering and Solution Design, the Cloud Architect acts as a Design Authority for public and private cloud architectures, overseeing key technical decisions across hybrid environments. This role is crucial for leading the organization's cloud transformation, ensuring that architectures meet enterprise standards for reliability, security" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted #007bff !important;">security, and operability. The Cloud Architect will support Solution Architects through design validation, assist Operations teams during major incidents, and promote a cloud-first, automation-driven engineering culture across ICT.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Conception: Define and validate the technical architecture of cloud-native and hybrid systems, ensuring alignment with business needs, scalability, and security. Serve as Design Authority for cloud platforms and automation pipelines. Review and approve infrastructure designs for compliance with enterprise standards. Contribute to architectural guidelines and technical evaluations related to cloud infrastructure. Align all designs with Enterprise Architecture, Security Assurance, and DevSecOps governance frameworks.
• Administration: Define and enforce technical standards, reference architectures, and configuration baselines for all cloud infrastructures. Supervise documentation and ensure consistency of the cloud architecture landscape. Guarantee traceability and version control across multi-environment deployments. Promote declarative, automated, and immutable infrastructure practices.
• Advice, Support and Escalation: Provide expert guidance, mentoring, and technical leadership to Solution Architects, Engineers, and Operations. Support Operations and Engineering teams during major service activities or exceptional situations, including major incidents and/or the launch of new services. Act as an escalation point and participate in incident troubleshooting, diagnostics, and recovery during major events impacting cloud platforms. Lead proofs of concept for emerging technologies and identify training needs to strengthen organizational expertise in cloud-native and DevSecOps practices.
• Communication and Governance: Maintain architectural coherence across Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Security Assurance, and Operations. Define and maintain architecture standards, blueprints, and patterns for hybrid cloud environments. Conduct design reviews, ensure governance compliance, and provide architectural sign-off. Promote collaboration and documentation through Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and technical communities of practice. Contribute to the Platform Governance Framework to ensure traceable and business-aligned decisions.

Required Qualifications:
Candidates must possess a university degree or equivalent (three to four years of higher education) in a relevant domain. Certifications such as CKA / CKAD / CKS, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, or HashiCorp Terraform Associate are highly valued. An ITIL Foundation or equivalent service-management certification is appreciated. Candidates should have a strong understanding of cloud technologies and architectures, particularly in relation to public and private cloud infrastructures.

Educational Background:
A university degree or equivalent in a relevant field is required, with a focus on IT or computer science. Additional certifications in cloud technologies and service management are highly desirable and will enhance a candidate's profile.

Experience:
A minimum of five years of experience in a large and complex IT enterprise environment is required. Candidates should have proven experience as a Design Authority or Principal Architect for public and private cloud infrastructures, demonstrating expertise in Kubernetes architecture, Infrastructure Automation, DevSecOps pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code. Practical experience providing escalation support for cloud platforms or infrastructure incidents is essential, along with familiarity with hybrid and multi-cloud architectures and related workflows.

Languages:
Fluency in English is mandatory, while working knowledge of French is highly desirable. Knowledge of a third official working language of the Organization, such as Arabic or Spanish, would be an additional asset, enhancing communication within the multicultural environment of INTERPOL.

Additional Notes:
The position is a fixed-term contract lasting 36 months, with the possibility of extension subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funds. Candidates should be prepared for tests and interviews approximately 1-3 weeks after the application deadline. Selected candidates are expected to report for duty approximately one to three months after receiving an offer of employment. This selection exercise may also be used to generate a reserve list of suitable candidates for future staffing needs.