Senior - architect

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world's most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world's most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

We are seeking a dynamic and innovative Test Architect to lead our Azure Infrastructure as Code (IaC) quality assurance initiatives and contribute to application development projects leveraging Python, Spring Boot, and React. This role bridges the domains of cloud infrastructure, automated testing, and modern application engineering, making it ideal for a technical leader passionate about DevOps, platform reliability, and developer productivity.

Role Overview

As a Test Architect, you will be responsible for designing and implementing robust quality frameworks for Azure-based IaC solutions, driving the adoption of automation best practices, and ensuring infrastructure consistency and compliance across multiple environments. You will also play a key role in developing and integrating supporting applications-ranging from automation scripts to dashboards-using Python for backend logic and Spring Boot/React for full-stack web development.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect and evolve comprehensive automated test strategies for Azure IaC, focusing on Terraform, ARM/Bicep, and policy compliance.
• Lead the development of Python-based automation tools and scripts for test execution, resource provisioning, configuration validation, and infrastructure reporting.
• Design, build, and maintain user-facing dashboards, reporting tools, and workflow automation platforms using Spring Boot and React, enabling data-driven insights into IaC test coverage, drift management, and compliance posture.
• Integrate IaC quality gates into CI/CD systems such as GitHub Actions, ensuring all code deployments pass automated test suites and drift detection scans before promotion.
• Establish and refine frameworks for drift detection, root cause analysis, and remediation, leveraging both native Azure services and custom-developed solutions.
• Collaborate with architects, security specialists, and application developers to align infrastructure test practices with organizational goals, compliance requirements, and evolving cloud technologies.
• Promote best practices through code reviews, technical workshops, and documentation.
• Design, implement, and maintain comprehensive automated testing suites for Azure IaC using python.
• Develop, execute, and refine test cases to validate infrastructure modules, deployments, and policies in Azure environments.
• Develop, enhance, and maintain supporting applications and tools using Python, Spring Boot, and React, facilitating automation, reporting, and dashboarding for IaC quality and drift management.
• Monitor, report, and remediate infrastructure drift, using tools and frameworks for continuous compliance and configuration management.
• Maintain detailed documentation on test coverage, drift findings, and corrective actions taken to ensure auditability and traceability.
• Conduct root cause analysis for infrastructure failures and propose solutions to improve test coverage and resilience.
• Stay up-to-date with Azure platform enhancements, testing tools, and industry trends in cloud IaC quality, governance, and full-stack development.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 14+ years of experience in cloud infrastructure engineering and automated testing, with a minimum of 3 years focused on Azure public cloud.
• Expertise in infrastructure automation using Terraform, ARM templates, and Bicep within Azure environments.
• Advanced proficiency in Python for developing test automation, orchestration logic, and data processing pipelines.
• Strong background in full-stack application development, including building RESTful APIs and web applications with Spring Boot (Java) and React.
• Hands-on experience with configuration management, monitoring, and compliance tools native to Azure, as well as industry-standard frameworks (e.g., Terratest, Pester).
• Track record of integrating infrastructure quality assurance into modern CI/CD pipelines.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, with an emphasis on technical documentation and cross-functional collaboration.
• Proficient in supporting, maintaining, and enhancing Spring Boot applications, ensuring seamless integration with backend services, optimized performance, and robust security for enterprise-scale cloud environments.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Azure-native monitoring tools such as Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights, enabling proactive detection and resolution of infrastructure issues.
• Proficiency in integrating monitoring frameworks with automated test suites and reporting dashboards, ensuring visibility into resource health, compliance drift, and system performance.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP) and hybrid IaC strategies.
• Familiarity with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes/AKS) and microservices architectures.
• Background in building secure, compliant platforms within regulated industries.
• Expertise in workflow automation, event-driven architectures, and data visualization using Python, Spring Boot, and React.
• Experience with TypeScript, Next.js, or other modern JavaScript frameworks.
• Familiarity with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions.
• Understanding of security best practices (OWASP, JWT, OAuth2, SSO).
• Background in performance optimization, caching strategies, and application monitoring.
• Exposure to automated testing tools (Jest, Mocha, Selenium, JUnit).
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and debugging skills.
• Relevant Azure and DevOps certifications (AZ-104, AZ-305, DevOps Engineer Expert) are strongly preferred.

Salary Range:

$95,600 - 162,400 USD

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Working with Us:

As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

We'd love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world's most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater

Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at [email protected] .

We hope you're excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.