About Us

For professional staff, Winston & Strawn presents an exciting opportunity to be a part of a leading global law firm. With our commitment to excellence, diversity, a collaborative work environment, and an emphasis on professional growth, Winston offers a platform for individuals seeking to advance their careers in a dynamic and rewarding environment. Winston is known for its collaborative and collegial culture. We believe teamwork is an essential component in providing high-quality legal services and we value the talents and skills of our entire professional staff team.

Position Summary

The Enterprise Cloud Architect role has a strategic responsibility for providing architectural guidance over the firm’s entire enterprise technology ecosystem, including cloud platforms, cloud services, infrastructure, software, and endpoints. The role requires a forward-thinking collaborative individual with a passion for technology and a “hands-on” technology background. The Architect will be a visionary for the department, creating short and long-term strategic and technical roadmaps that support our ongoing disruption to traditional law firm business models by leveraging cost-effective, cutting-edge solutions.

The Enterprise Cloud Architect plays a pivotal role in IT by aggregating knowledge, roadmaps, and best practices into a core, centralized set of plans. The role is collaborative, shaping, and aggregating the knowledge of experts around the firm to create a central, agreed upon strategy and blueprint. The role is to create and foster an environment of innovation by:
• Removing roadblocks and enabling strategic risk taking
• Advocating and driving change management
• Enabling and modeling the adoption of innovative behaviors and practices

Duties And Responsibilities
• Provides consultation and technical expertise on IT systems and process planning by assessing the implications of IT strategies on Infrastructure capabilities.
• Develops architecture standards and provides technical oversight for systems and projects that are required to be globally scaled and highly available.
• Collaborate to help define and understand target strategies. Evaluates new service options, identifies issues and impacts, and makes recommendations on feasibility and ROI of new technologies.
• Designs cloud-based infrastructure solutions that address enterprise challenges.
• Collaborates extensively with internal teams (Applications, Security, Infrastructure, Identity and Collaboration, Endpoint, etc.) and vendors on architecture strategy and roadmaps. Works to ensure functional specifications are converted into flexible, scalable, and maintainable designs.
• Works in close partnership with the Security & Risk leadership on designs and configurations to ensure the IT systems meet the risk and security expectations of the Firm and its clients.
• To ensure successful results, it facilitates the implementation of key enterprise solutions by developing and documenting detailed standards (guidelines, processes, and procedures) and performing gap analysis to expected results.
• Drives innovation, efficiency and continuous improvement of our IT environment.
• Develops and validates system designs in conjunction with subject matter experts in security, identity, collaboration and infrastructure.
• Writes, reviews, and validates clear technical specifications and documentation.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Basic Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 10+ years of experience leading technical or project teams with or without direct reports. Experience with infrastructure and application lifecycle management required.
• Microsoft based technology expertise required, including Windows Server & Desktop OS, M365 cloud services and Azure IaaS including Azure Virtual Desktop required.
• Must live within a commutable distance to the firm office with the ability to come into the office 3-4 days per week.

COMPETENCIES
• Experience in an IT role requiring interaction with senior management, risk / security, and infrastructure teams.
• Experience migrating on premises to cloud-based platforms.
• Proven success creating business-enabling technology roadmaps.
• Previous experience working in a matrix management structure is helpful.
• Previous experience writing technical documentation in an infrastructure environment.
• General technology knowledge that spans broadly across IT constructs, including networking, systems, identity, storage, and operations.
• Experience with IAM and RBAC strategies, and authorization & authentication configuration for users and applications with Entra and third party IDPs.
• Experience with multi-site office solution architectures with SDWAN technologies.
• Exceptional interpersonal, leadership, and organizational skills with the ability to champion emerging technologies to achieve desired results.

Benefits

Winston offers comprehensive benefits that provide a full spectrum of coverage and support for our full-time employees and their families. Additional information about benefits and rewards can be found here .

SALARY

Illinois based applicants only: The target annual salary range for this role is currently $160,000-$187,000 based on a regular, full-time schedule. The amount of compensation offered will be determined by several factors, including but not limited to experience, qualifications, market data and internal equity. Total compensation may include an annual discretionary merit bonus, yearly retirement plan contribution, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Washington, DC based applicants only: The target annual salary range for this role is currently $171,000-$200,000 based on a regular, full-time schedule. The amount of compensation offered will be determined by several factors, including but not limited to experience, qualifications, market data and internal equity. Total compensation may include an annual discretionary merit bonus, yearly retirement plan contribution, and a comprehensive benefits package.

We value diversity in the workplace. EOE/Minorities/Females/Vets/Disabled (EOE=Equal Opportunity Employer)