Principal Infrastructure Architect

ISO New England is the independent system operator responsible for ensuring the safe and reliable flow of electricity in our region and planning for the future of the electric grid. We are at the forefront of New England’s ongoing transition to clean energy.


The Principal Infrastructure Architect is a technical leader responsible for defining and evolving ISO New England's enterprise infrastructure architecture. This role drives long-term strategy across cloud, hybrid, compute, storage, virtualization, reliability, observability, and performance, ensuring highly resilient, scalable, and mission-critical systems.
Partnering with Enterprise Architecture, Network Architecture, Security, Infrastructure Engineering, Site Reliability, and business leaders, this role ensures infrastructure designs anticipate future needs, embed security by design, and support the reliability of the New England electric grid, wholesale markets, and internal IT services.
The ideal candidate will have a breadth of experience across infrastructure domains with deep expertise in one or two areas. Flexibility, range, and the ability to thrive in a heavily regulated environment matter more than mastery of any single technology stack.
What we offer you
• A stable, mission-driven workplace where your impact truly matters
• A highly engaged work environment that values inclusion, collaboration, and employee safety and wellbeing
• Competitive compensation with a base salary + performance bonus
• Robust benefits package, including:
◦ Enhanced 401(k) and financial planning support
◦ Tuition reimbursement and professional development
◦ Wellness programs, including an onsite gym
◦ Flexible work hours
◦ Employee Business Networks
◦ Free coffee at our onsite café
• Hybrid work environment (3 days/week onsite)’
• Distance-based relocation assistance available
How you will make an Impact
• Strategy & Architecture
◦ Own the 3–5 year infrastructure architecture roadmap, including technology lifecycles and technical debt reduction
◦ Influence infrastructure strategy supporting grid operations, markets, and enterprise IT
◦ Align infrastructure architecture with modern reliability, performance, and observability practices
• Infrastructure Design
◦ Design and evolve enterprise infrastructure platforms across cloud, hybrid, compute, storage, and virtualization
◦ Evaluate existing solutions for architectural integrity, scalability, and alignment with security standards
◦ Define standardized architecture patterns and reusable components to accelerate adoption
• Reliability & Operational Excellence
◦ Architect for high availability (HA), disaster recovery (DR), automated failover, and resilience
◦ Embed observability, telemetry, and capacity planning into all designs
◦ Support complex incident response and ensure lessons learned inform future architecture
• Leadership & Governance
◦ Partner with Enterprise Architecture, the Principal Network Architect, and Security to ensure cross-domain alignment
◦ Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and implementation guidance to engineers and architects across the organization
◦ Participate in architecture reviews, governance forums, and post-incident retrospectives
◦ Champion SRS reliability, observability, and performance standards
What we are looking for
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Security, or related field
• 10+ years’ experience with enterprise infrastructure technologies
• 5+ years in infrastructure or platform architecture roles
• Track record of building and operating infrastructure before moving into pure architecture work
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation (Terraform, Ansible, GitOps)
• Breadth across cloud, hybrid, compute, storage, and virtualization, with deep expertise in at least one or two areas
• Strong understanding of reliability engineering, capacity planning, and performance engineering
• Proven ability to lead complex initiatives and collaborate across teams
• Desired not required:
◦ Advanced degree in a technical field
◦ Certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect (Professional), VCDX, CKA, Microsoft Enterprise, Terraform/Ansible
◦ Experience working in heavily regulated or audited environments (NERC CIP, SOC, FedRAMP, PCI, HIPAA, or similar) where change control, documentation, and process rigor are non-negotiable

This employer will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position (ex: H-1B, F-1/CPT/OPT, O-1, E-3, TN, J, et