The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is seeking an experienced and high performing candidate to fill the role of Infrastructure Solution Architect. Our ideal candidate will be:
- An experienced Infrastructure Solution Architect who can translate business and service requirements into secure, scalable and supportable solution designs across cloud, identity, security, network and application services.
- A pragmatic technical leader who can provide end to end architectural assurance through design, build, change and transition to operations, working effectively in a small and agile agency environment.
- A strong collaborator who can work across IT Operations, business users across NHMRC, project teams, MSPs and vendors to ensure cross-service dependencies are understood, risks are managed, and solutions are integrated and operable.
- A governance minded adviser who can support enterprise change decision making (e.g., CAB) by validating impacts, testing, sequencing and rollback planning, and communicating complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
What we offer
What truly makes us a great place to work? It is our highly engaging, inclusive and supportive culture. With an outstanding 85% response rate,* our staff told us they feel pride in their work (89%), are committed to our goals (92%), and value our leadership and communication. We are leading the way in employee engagement, innovation, and wellbeing support—making NHMRC not just a workplace, but a community where people thrive. *according to our recent 2024–25 APS Census results.
Our roles come with broad responsibilities and minimal hierarchy, making it easier to get things done. You will be part of a small, inclusive, and high performing team with a strong, supportive culture.
We offer:
- A truly flexible workplace culture.
- A dynamic, diverse and supportive team across Melbourne and Canberra.
- Wellbeing programs including up to 6 free counselling sessions per year and a workplace that genuinely cares.
- Generous recreational leave, personal leave, cultural leave, parental leave and paid end-of-year shutdown.
- Study assistance and professional development opportunities that align with your career goals.
- Opportunities to be trusted to lead high value projects with the freedom to innovate and the support to grow.
- Strategic exposure where you can engage directly with senior leaders and contribute to decisions that shape our future direction.
Remuneration
$121,755 - $138,410 per annum* plus 15.4% superannuation
- Flexible remuneration arrangements may be considered in line with the NHMRC Enterprise Agreement and legislative requirements.
Job specific duties
As the Infrastructure Solution Architect, you will:
- Design and assure end to end technology solutions across cloud, identity, security, network and application services, ensuring cross-service integration and solution integrity.
- Translate business and service requirements into solution architectures that are secure, scalable, resilient, and supportable in NHMRC’s operating model.
- Provide architectural support for business operations, projects and major changes, including development of options, trade off analysis (enterprise reuse vs one-off tooling), develop solution design where applicable and recommendations to decision-makers.
- Act as the solution level control point for change activity by supporting enterprise change governance (including CAB), confirming dependencies, sequencing, testing, and rollback planning before production implementation.
- Review and assure solution designs, technical documentation, statements of work, and vendor proposals to ensure commitments are based on validated requirements and align with NHMRC standards.
- Work closely with IT Operations, project teams, MSPs and vendors to ensure delivered solutions meet architectural intent, security posture, and operational supportability.
- Provide expert advice to ITMS staff on solution design patterns and integration approaches across the Microsoft centric environment (e.g., Azure, Microsoft 365, identity and monitoring), and guide fit for purpose platform choices.
- Contribute architectural input to incident and problem management where end to end understanding is required to resolve high risk service issues and prevent recurrence.
- Support procurement and renewals by defining technical requirements and evaluation criteria, validating assumptions, and advising on licensing, service lifecycle, and FinOps considerations to reduce commercial and operational risk.
- Design and maintain AI tools lifecycle management to support NHMRC’s AI adoption program, including governance controls (e.g., data protection and monitoring) ensuring AI tools are compliant, deployable, supported and well integrated.
Core capabilities
The successful candidate will demonstrate the following:
Strategic leadership
- Sets and maintains a clear solution architecture direction aligned to organisational priorities.
- Anticipates future capability needs and positions the organisation accordingly.
Stewardship and accountability
- Takes responsibility for the integrity, sustainability and security of solution designs and associated technology components.
- Applies sound judgement in balancing innovation, risk, compliance and cost.
Influence and collaboration
- Builds strong relationships with senior executives, technical leaders and business stakeholders.
- Influences outcomes through advice, assurance and consensus rather than authority.
Systems thinking
- Understands how people, processes, information and technology interact across the enterprise.
- Connects architectural decisions to business outcomes, investment planning and delivery.
Communicating with influence
- Clearly explains complex architectural concepts to non-technical audiences.
- Produces high quality documentation and advice suitable for executive and governance settings.
Highly desirable
The following qualifications, demonstrated knowledge and experience will be highly regarded:
- Bachelor’s degree in information technology, a related field, or equivalent experience.
- Relevant Microsoft certifications (for example, Azure and Microsoft 365) are preferred.
- Experience operating as a Solution Architect (or equivalent) in a complex federal government environment, providing end-to-end solution design and assurance across multiple technology domains, and producing detailed transition states to reduce risk.
- Strong knowledge of Microsoft Azure and modern cloud-based enterprise environments, including Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Intune, Microsoft Sentinel, Entra and Microsoft Defender.
- Experience with business-critical systems, including grants or regulatory platforms.
- Demonstrated experience applying architecture processes and Australian Government security guidance, including the ASD Blueprint for Secure Cloud, the Information Security Manual (ISM), the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) and Essential Eight controls.
- Knowledge of recognised enterprise architecture frameworks (for example, TOGAF) and their practical application.
- Demonstrated experience contributing to investment planning, portfolio rationalisation or architectural assurance, change management, and licensing and FinOps advice.
- Demonstrated experience and/or familiarity with Azure virtual network configuration, including hybrid network architecture, and Zero Trust secure access service edge (SASE) solutions such as Zscaler.
Mandatory requirement
The successful candidate will be required to obtain and maintain an Australian Government Negative Vetting (NV1) security clearance.
Further information
For further information contact Aidan Chalker on (02) 6217 9395 or email
[email protected]
Eligibility
To be eligible for a position at NHMRC, you must be an Australian citizen and be able to provide evidence of this. If successful, you will also be required to undertake a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check.
How to apply
You must submit a completed online application form with your Resume prior to the closing date and time.
NHMRC is an inclusive and diverse employer that supports gender equity and diversity in leadership. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including People with Disability, First Nations peoples, LGBTIQA+ people, mature age people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Applications close
7:00 PM AEST Tuesday, 23 June 2026.
