Principal AI Modernization Architect / Modernization Technical SME

Principal AI Modernization Architect /

Modernization Technical SME Location:

Bethesda, MD /

Hybrid Employment Type:

Full-Time Clearance:

Public Trust, Eligible to obtain Top Secret. About Business Integra Business Integra is seeking a highly hands-on Principal AI Modernization Architect / Modernization Technical SME to serve as the technical owner and subject matter expert for Moderniza, Business Integra's AI-enabled application modernization platform. Moderniza is designed to transform complex legacy applications into modern, secure, cloud-native, and AI-ready solutions by combining AI-assisted software engineering, application analysis, code transformation, automated testing, DevSecOps, and cloud deployment. This is not a traditional architecture, advisory, or oversight position. We are looking for a technical leader who codes, experiments, troubleshoots, architects, and builds. The successful candidate will develop a deep understanding of the Moderniza platform and codebase and will be responsible for configuring and extending the platform for different legacy technologies, building AI-enabled engineering workflows, troubleshooting modernization challenges, developing integrations and pipelines, and working across applications, databases, APIs, cloud platforms, and full-stack environments. The ultimate objective is to ensure Moderniza can reliably take unfamiliar legacy applications from ingestion through analysis, transformation, testing, and deployment of working modern applications. What You'll Do Own Moderniza Technically

• Develop a deep hands-on understanding of the platform's architecture, source code, components, and engineering workflows.
• Design, code, debug, test, and enhance the platform.
• Troubleshoot modernization failures across the complete lifecycle, from application ingestion through generated application deployment.
• Own technical quality, architecture, engineering practices, scalability, and platform reliability.
• Evaluate emerging AI and software-engineering technologies and incorporate them when they provide measurable value to the platform. Modernize Across Legacy Technologies
• Analyze unfamiliar customer application environments and determine what the modernization platform needs to ingest, understand, analyze, and transform them.
• Configure or extend ingestion, parsing, application analysis, and transformation capabilities as required.
• Understand application structures, dependencies, interfaces, data flows, and runtime behavior without requiring prior expertise in every source technology.
• Diagnose incomplete, inaccurate, or inconsistent application analysis and determine how to improve platform results.
• Establish appropriate target architectures and modernization strategies.
• Ensure modernization outputs are complete, maintainable, testable, secure, and deployable. AI-Native Engineering
• Work extensively with Claude/Claude Code, OpenAI/Codex, Gemini, and emerging AI-assisted software development technologies.
• Design, develop, and improve agentic AI software-engineering workflows.
• Use AI coding tools extensively for platform development, debugging, refactoring, documentation, and testing.
• iterative AI-assisted development approaches while maintaining strong engineering discipline and production-quality standards.
• Evaluate AI-generated code and transform experimental outputs into reliable, maintainable production solutions.
• Build model and tool integrations and structured programmatic AI workflows.
• Implement deterministic validation, automated quality checks, and Human-in-the-Loop controls around AI-generated output.
• Evaluate AI models based on quality, performance, latency, reliability, and cost. Python & Full-Stack Engineering
• Serve as a senior hands-on Python engineer and architect.
• Build backend services, APIs, automation frameworks, and platform components.
• Work across backend, frontend, database, and integration layers.
• Design and work with modern application and service architectures.
• Work with React, Angular, or comparable modern frontend technologies.
• Troubleshoot applications end-to-end, from the user interface through APIs, application logic, integrations, and databases.
• Review, refactor, optimize, and productionize AI-generated code. DevSecOps & Platform Engineering
• Build, troubleshoot, and modernize CI/CD pipelines using technologies such as Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, and Azure DevOps.
• Demonstrate strong proficiency with GitHub, GitLab, Git, branching strategies, pull requests, and modern software-development practices.
• Build automated testing, validation, and quality gates into software delivery pipelines.
• Integrate security tooling including SAST, DAST, dependency scanning, secrets management, and software supply-chain security.
• Work hands-on with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Deploy and troubleshoot applications across AWS EKS, Azure AKS, and comparable container platforms.
• Implement repeatable deployment and infrastructure automation.
• Support modern application delivery across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and restricted environments. Databases & Data Modernization
• Work hands-on with Postgre

SQL, SQL

Server/Azure SQL, and other modern relational databases.

• Analyze unfamiliar legacy data structures and determine appropriate modern data representations.
• Design schemas, migrations, data-access patterns, and integration approaches.
• Troubleshoot data conversion, transaction, synchronization, and integration issues.
• Understand modern AI-oriented data technologies, including vector databases, w applicable. Cloud Engineering
• Work across AWS and Microsoft Azure, including government cloud environments when required.
• knowledge of cloud networking, IAM/RBAC, secrets management, logging, monitoring, observability, storage, and application security.
• Deploy and troubleshoot containerized applications.
• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code and automated deployment practices.
• Support Moderniza across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and restricted environments. Customer Technical SME
• Lead the technical aspects of demonstrations, proofs of concept (POCs), and modernization engagements.
• Rapidly assess a customer's legacy application and technology landscape.
• Determine the application artifacts, source code, dependencies, data, and access requirements needed by Moderniza.
• Configure and adapt the platform for customer-specific modernization scenarios.
• Diagnose and resolve issues encountered during application analysis and conversion.
• Explain modernization results to developers, architects, security teams, technical leadership, and executives.
• Translate POC results into technically credible enterprise modernization roadmaps.
  Required Qualifications
• 10+ years of hands-on software engineering and architecture experience.
• Expert-level Python development skills.
• Significant current experience using Claude/Claude Code, OpenAI/Codex, Gemini, or comparable AI coding environments.
• Strong understanding of agentic AI and AI-assisted software development.
• Strong full-stack software engineering capabilities.
• Strong API design and service-architecture skills.
• Advanced GitHub, GitLab, and Git expertise.
• Hands-on CI/CD experience with Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, or comparable technologies.
• Strong PostgreSQL and relational database skills.
• Hands-on Docker and Kubernetes experience.
• Experience with AWS and/or Microsoft Azure.
• Strong automated testing and DevSecOps knowledge.
• Exceptional debugging and root-cause-analysis capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to rapidly learn unfamiliar technologies, architectures, and codebases.
• Ability to move seamlessly between architecture, application code, AI tooling, CI/CD pipelines, databases, security, and cloud infrastructure. Highly Desired Qualifications
• Experience building AI-native developer platforms, coding agents, application modernization accelerators, or developer tooling.
• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and AI tool integration.
• Experience with RAG, vector databases, knowledge graphs, or related AI data architectures.
• Experience with AWS EKS, Azure AKS, OpenShift, or comparable container platforms.
• Experience with Terraform or comparable Infrastructure-as-Code technologies.
• Experience with application security and software supply-chain security tooling.
• Experience with C#/.NET and/or Java.
• Experience decomposing large, complex monolithic applications.
• Experience with Strangler Fig or incremental application modernization strategies.
• Exposure to Fed

RAMP, NIST

800-53, RMF, or CMMC.

• Experience supporting U.

S. Federal Government technology environments. Business Integra, Inc. and our affiliates are equal opportunity employers, committed to diversity and inclusion. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, work-related injury, covered veteran status, political ideology, marital status, or any other factor that the law protects from employment discrimination. We utilize e-Verify to check employment authorization. EEO/AA/F/M/Vet/Disabled...

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