Infrastructure Architect Senior

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The Center for Academic Innovation is seeking an Infrastructure Architect Senior to design and operate the platform infrastructure that supports Michigan Online and CAI's digital learning ecosystem. Reporting to the Director of Technology Infrastructure and Support, you will drive the infrastructure roadmap, cloud architecture, operational reliability, and Tier 2 service model. This is a hands-on technical management role with formal responsibility for supervising infrastructure engineers, including performance management, coaching, and delivery accountability.

You will also build the systems, standards, and operational practices that enable scalable, secure, and reliable learning for a global audience.

About the Center for Academic Innovation

Through curricular innovation, tools for student success, and educational research and analytics, the University of Michigan is building the future of education. Our vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives. To realize our vision, we make it our mission to collaborate across campus and around the world to create equitable, lifelong educational opportunities for learners everywhere.

About the Technology Infrastructure and Support Team

The TIS team builds and maintains the robust technology foundation that enables innovation at the Center for Academic Innovation. We ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of the CAI's media, IT, and learning infrastructure, supporting everything from studio production and XR experiences to course platforms and internal systems. Our work spans Michigan Online infrastructure, AV systems design, IT support, media asset management, cloud storage, cybersecurity, and disaster recovery planning.

We collaborate closely with Creative Studios, Operations, and product engineering teams to deliver seamless technical experiences for learners, faculty, and staff. Whether designing resilient workflows, managing cross-functional support models, or piloting next-generation tools, the TIS team plays a critical role in advancing CAI's mission at scale.

For more information, please visit our website:

Infrastructure & Cloud Architecture

• Lead the Michigan Online and CAI cloud infrastructure roadmap, including hands-on ownership of production AWS environments supporting customer-facing platforms at scale.
• Architect and evolve a cloud-native, auto-scaling infrastructure capable of supporting millions of global learners. Champion the shift toward immutability and self-healing systems.
• Design, implement, and operate platform-wide observability and monitoring systems (e.g., metrics, logging, tracing) for production services, including alerting, incident response, and post-incident remediation.
• Define and maintain standards for authentication, authorization, and API integrations.

Operational & Service Management

• Design and implement the Tier 2 incident and service management model, including SLAs, escalation paths, and operational readiness.
• Lead modernization of ticketing workflows across CAI technical teams, ensuring clear ownership, prioritization, and transparency.

Systems, Storage & Resilience

• Oversee enterprise storage, archival infrastructure, and data lifecycle management.
• Partner on cloud security, backup, disaster recovery, and resilience planning, including readiness and testing.
• Support capacity planning and cost-aware infrastructure decisions.

Team Leadership & Collaboration

• Lead and manage an infrastructure team, providing technical direction, coaching, and performance oversight while remaining hands-on in architecture, escalation, and reliability engineering.
• Serve as Infrastructure Squad Lead, accountable for roadmap execution and operational outcomes.
• Partner closely with TIS, Dev Ops, Data, and Learning Experience Designers to align infrastructure capabilities with platform and learning needs.
• Coordinate with ITS and external vendors on integrations, cloud services, and platform support

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• 7+ years of experience in infrastructure, platform engineering, or site reliability roles supporting production systems.
• 3+ years of experience formally managing infrastructure or platform engineering staff, including performance reviews, delivery accountability, and staff development.
• Demonstrated experience leading an infrastructure or platform team with formal responsibility for roadmap execution, backlog prioritization, and operational outcomes.
• Hands-on experience owning and operating…