Application closing date: Thursday, 22 January 2026
• 11:59pm, Canberra time
Estimated start date: Monday, 09 February 2026
Location of work: SA
Working arrangements: Candidates will have hybrid working arrangements (i.e. a combination of onsite attendance in the office and remote working)
Length of contract: 12 months
Contract extensions: 2x 12 months
Security clearance: Must be able to obtain Baseline clearance
Rates: $120 - $145 per hour (inc. super)
The Cloud Infrastructure, Architecture and Strategy team within the Department of Veterans' Affairs & the Repatriation Commission and the Military Rehabilitation and Co is currently undergoing a significant transformation to support the delivery of the DVA Digital Strategy
They are seeking highly motivated technical specialists to join our team to lead this modernisation journey. You will play a critical role in defining DVA's cloud capabilities, consolidating data platforms, and establishing robust architectural governance. This is a unique opportunity to share the digital future of the department, working across complex, high-visibility programs.
The key position responsibilities are:
* Provide expert architectural guidance to high-priority projects, ensuring solutions align with the DVA Digital Strategy and target state architecture.
* Develop High-Level Designs (HLDs) and solution blueprints that bridge the gap between complex business requirements and technical implementation.
* Conduct technical assessments of new solution requests and External Costing Requests (ECRs) to ensure value for money.
* Collaborate with Services Australia architects to ensure alignment between DVA-specific solutions and shared services ecosystem.
* Lead the technical design of DVA's future-state cloud capability, including the definition of the Cloud Operating Model and Landing Zone architecture.
* Develop lifecycle roadmaps for DVA's SaaS portfolio to prevent platform sprawl and ensure architectural coherence.
* Provide technical leadership on the migration of legacy on-premises applications to cloud-native or hybrid environments.
* Embed "Security by Design" principles into all architectural patterns, ensuring compliance with the ISM, PSPF, and Essential Eight.
* Design the security architecture for the department's cloud capabilities and SaaS integrations.
* Support the technical design of the Security and Information and Event Management (SIEM) capability uplift.
* Design the technical strategy for consolidating DVA's legacy data stores into a unified modern cloud data platform.
* Demonstrate hands-on capability in designing and building modern data pipelines (ETL/ELT) and data flows within a cloud environment (e.g. Azure Data Factory, Databricks).
* Design architectures that support the scaling of Enterprise Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities.
* Define technical data governance standards.
Essential criteria
1. Architectural frameworks: proven experience applying architectural frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, SABSA, DAMA) in a complex enterprise environment.
2. Cloud Expertise: deep technical understanding of cloud platforms (specifically Microsoft Azure) and experience in designing secure, scalable cloud-native solutions.
3. Data Engineering Proficiency: for Data Architect roles, demonstrated experience in modern data engineering, including cloud-based data ingestion, transformation
4. Communication & Influence: the ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical executives and the confidence to negotiate with vendors and delivery partners.
5. Strategic Thinking: experience in moving beyond operational "fix-it" work to strategic planning, roadmap development, and lifecycle management.
6. Governance: experience working within or establishing architectural governance boards (e.g., ARB) and design authorities.
HOW TO APPLY
Please provide an updated CV (a maximum of 3-5 pages) to reflect your suitability to the role based on the job description. You will also need to complete a summary which is no more than 5000 characters in total in response to the requirements for the role and the essential and desirable criteria. Your application will be reviewed based on ability to demonstrate, or potential to develop, the capabilities required.