Principal Solutions Architect, Global Defense Partners
Amazon · Denver, CO
$182,800–$247,300from the description
Jul 9, 2026
Denver, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A principal-level technical role focused on helping US federal defense partners and their ecosystem of systems integrators adopt AWS cloud services. Day-to-day work involves designing cloud architectures, building proof-of-concept solutions, and guiding IT modernization efforts for government missions. The role suits a deeply experienced cloud or infrastructure architect who holds an active Top Secret clearance and is comfortable engaging both technical teams and executive stakeholders.
Senior level · 10+ years · Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA · Bachelor's required · Top Secret clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
What the occupation pays Median $124,233 (middle half $103,180–$143,549). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The role is titled 'Principal Solutions Architect' but the actual requirements — 10+ years of broad technology experience, a bachelor's degree, and cloud/IT transformation work — are consistent with a Senior-level scope. The 'Principal' label at AWS reflects a job family tier rather than the org-wide technical authority that would distinguish a true Principal band on a standard career ladder.
SOC classification is Medium confidence. The day-to-day work is pre-sales/partner-facing technical advisory and solution design (closer to 15-1211 Systems Analysts), but the role also involves hands-on PoC development and technology roadmap work that overlaps with 15-1252 Software Developers.
The Basic Qualifications section lists broad domain experience (software development, cloud, systems engineering, etc.) rather than specific named technologies, so only AWS/cloud computing are extracted as hard-gate skills from that section. Specific AWS services (EC2, S3, RDS, Bedrock, HPC) appear only in the role narrative/context, not in a requirements block.
All Preferred Qualifications items — distributed systems, large-scale automation, database design, cloud migration/modernization, and defense compliance frameworks (FedRAMP, CMMC, DoD SRG, ITAR) — are listed under the explicitly secondary 'Preferred Qualifications' heading.
The degree requirement states 'Bachelor's degree … or equivalent,' which normally maps to None; however, the JD does not explicitly offer an experience-only path in the same breath — it lists the degree as a Basic Qualification alongside experience. Given the 'or equivalent' language, this is a borderline call; treated as Bachelors given its placement as a hard Basic Qualification.
The posting lists a Irvine, CA location; the applicable CBSA is Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (31080), which encompasses Orange County.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): database design.
Requires a Top Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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