A federal government department is seeking a Lead Microservices and AI Technical Architect to join its CIO Division, providing technical leadership and architectural authority across cloud-native, microservices-based and AI-enabled platforms.

This is a senior, hands-on architecture leadership role for someone who can set technical direction, influence architecture across a complex enterprise setting, and lead modern engineering and AI delivery practices — while directly uplifting the capability of the teams around them.

The Role

- Provide architectural authority for cloud native, microservices-based and event-driven platforms
- Lead AI-enabled solution delivery — enterprise AI, semantic search, ML, and responsible AI practices
- Champion modern engineering practices: AI-enabled SDLC, DevSecOps, CI/CD, automated testing, observability
- Drive technology modernisation initiatives — microservices, containerisation, integration, reusable patterns
- Build organisational capability through knowledge transfer, coaching and engineering leadership
- Engage confidently across multidisciplinary teams, delivery partners and senior executives

Essential Criteria

- Extensive experience designing, implementing and governing cloud native, microservices and event-driven architectures in complex enterprise environments




- Demonstrated AI engineering and AI-enabled solution delivery expertise, including enterprise AI, semantic search, ML and responsible AI
- Strong software and platform engineering background — modern frameworks, DevSecOps, CI/CD, automated testing, observability, security by design
- Proven leadership of enterprise technology modernisation/transformation — setting technical direction and delivering measurable reliability, security and scalability gains
- Exceptional stakeholder engagement, communication and leadership across multidisciplinary teams, delivery partners and senior executives

Desirable Criteria

- Container platform experience (Kubernetes, OpenShift, AKS, EKS, GKE) — automation, governance, workload management
- Cloud platform modernisation, SRE, platform engineering and enterprise observability/automation
- Agile delivery leadership — coaching dispersed teams and driving capability uplift

Engagement Details

- Level: Lead — EL2 equivalent
- Location: ACT, Hybrid, max 40 hours/week
- Start date: 1 October 2026
- Term: Initial 12 months, plus 2 x 12-month extension options
- Clearance: Must be able to obtain Baseline

Apply Now Applications close Monday 14 September 2026

📌 Lead Microservices and AI Technical Architect (Canberra)
🏢 Lookahead
📍 Canberra