.net Solutions Architect
Solution Partners, Inc. (Addison, Illinois)

Please take a look at the following opportunity at one of our very best clients located off of North Avenue (Route 64) in West Chicago, IL. This is a permanent full time position that can begin as a Contract to hire role at up to $85-90 per hour on our W-2; and evolve into a permanent position
with an annual salary of $125,000 plus outstanding benefits, or if you prefer - it will begin as a permanent position. If you are interested, please send me a resume in MS Word format with complete home address, daytime phone, with the best time to call, US Citizenship status, current/desired annual salary and availability to interview/begin work. All applicants will remain confidential. Sorry,  H-1B visa, 3rd party or corp to corp 3rd party candidates will be considered. Local candidates will be given
preference over out of town candidates as there is no relocation expense package for this particular role.

Thanks,
Tim Healy, CPC
Senior Recruiter
thealy@solpart.com

GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Application Architect’s role is to strategically design and direct the implementation of in-house information systems and networked software architectures that support core organizational functions, and assure their high availability. This includes defining, developing, testing, analyzing and maintaining new software applications in support of the achievement of business requirements.  In addition, the Application Architect provides technical leadership across the application development team, from strategic decision making down to the project planning level.
The right candidate will be able to weigh business decisions against technical ones and will determine product-definitions and feature sets in conjunction with the rest of the team. This position is about half architecture/design and half actual coding, with some managerial duties, and will strongly influence our engineering process and culture

RESPONSIBILITIES
• Collaborate with developers, project managers and business analysts in conceptualizing and developing new software applications and enhancements.
• Assist in the definition, development, and documentation of software’s business requirements, objectives, deliverables, and specifications on a project-by-project basis in collaboration with internal users and departments.
• Assist in defining software development project plans, including scoping, scheduling, and implementation.
• Conduct research on emerging application development software products, languages, and standards in support of procurement and development efforts.
• Manage and/or provide guidance to development team members.
• Develop technical documentation to define the system components, development environment and implementation planning/strategies
• Maintain a current awareness of technological developments and trends as it relates to Web architecture, databases, development and tools.
• Responsible for developing estimates on related project work
• Responsible for staying current with new technology developments and development techniques.
• Ability to work with web developers, project managers, business analysts, account managers, and/or tech lead to achieve business and functional requirements. Ability to work with front end design team and/or tech lead to achieve functional requirements.
• Cooperate with the Quality Assurance team to define test cases, metrics, and resolution guidelines.
• Implement solutions that are reliable, scalable, and perform at a high-level to meet the service levels associated with mission-critical web-based solutions.
• Work with business users to analyze and recommend business process flow improvements.
• Prepare design documents and technical papers explaining and motivating the approaches to be taken in the deployment of systems.
• Deliver high-quality solutions to business owners to ensure alignment of technical solution with business objectives
• Lead a small team of developers through the prototype stage.
• Document and share knowledge gain with larger development team
• Work in a team environment
• Clearly communicate problem/resolution process to project management

The above outlines the principal work and responsibilities in the job and does not specify each and every task that might be performed.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE AS DIRECTED BY MANAGEMENT

SKILLS
• The candidate must have the ability to design and implement solutions that are reliable, scalable, and perform at a high-level to meet the service levels associated with mission-critical web-based solutions.
• Deep architecture and development skills in both back-end and front-end Microsoft technologies.
• Deep expertise in the Microsoft platform including C#, Visual Studio, ASP.NET 2.0 or later and Microsoft SQL Server (including developing stored procedures).
• Define and implement strategies for integration of 3rd party systems into the business and technical architectures.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving abilities. Great problem solving skills
• Able to decompose and solve problems at the appropriate level within the system, keeping in mind the higher-level structures and their requirements and dependencies with adjoining subsystems
• Solid working knowledge of current Internet technologies, including Object Oriented Methodologies.
• The candidate must have an understanding and experience with Object Oriented analysis and design practices (Object modeling, use cases, activity diagrams, and UML).  Strong object-oriented design and development skills
• Work with functional teams to define and implement migration strategies from legacy systems to new architecture and technologies.
• The candidate must have the ability to work well within a team environment.
• Ability to work within tight deadlines and effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Outstanding communication skills (verbal and written) and an ability to communicate with internal and external customers and all levels of management, including communicating technical information to nontechnical audiences. 
• Attention to detail and the ability to manage several projects at once
• Clear understanding of Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology and respective experience with its application in design and development phases
• Excellent understanding of coding methods and best practices.
• Flexible and adaptable in regards to learning and understanding new technologies.
• Highly self motivated and directed.
EXPERIENCE
• Solid experience in using design patterns, distributed paradigms, modeling techniques and UML.
• Experience designing and developing core architectural components such as security models, messaging infrastructures, exception handling and tracing frameworks, etc.
• Experience in defining integration strategies and implementing integration and migration strategies and using integration and ETL tools and technologies.
• Experience leading development teams and providing technical direction and leadership.
• 10+ years of overall IT/software development experience
• 5+ years of recent and relevant experience as an Application Architect
• 5+ years of application architecture experience with distributed and object-oriented systems with a deep understanding of the .NET Framework and object-oriented concepts
• 3+ years driving application architecture design (infrastructure and software) for .Net highly scaled web applications
• 7+ years of development experience in object oriented languages with good software methodology practices
• 7+ years of web application development
• 4+ years of C# development
• 4+ years of ASP.Net development
• 7+ years Relational Database Experience with either SQL server or Oracle
• 5+ years database design
• 4+ years of MS SQL Server experience, great SQL skills
• TFS experience preferred

EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
• Candidates must possess a Bachelor's degree (and/or 5 years equivalent work experience or specialized training) in Information Technology (IT), Computer Science (CS), Software Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Advanced Microsoft certifications a plus.