At Ascensus, technology is more than just a solution. It powers the business that helps millions of people save for what matters—retirement, education, and healthcare. Our technology experts tackle exciting challenges in collaborative teams, but work in an environment where individual and career development is always valued. Technology associates leverage their talents and passion, building new and innovative platforms, creating programs founded in automation in agile frameworks, and driving existing and new markets—all of which supports the rapid growth of a dynamic industry leader.

SECTION 1: POSITION SUMMARY

The Principal Architect, Citrix Engineering, is the senior-most technical resource within the infrastructure department focused on Citrix stability, scalability, performance, and user experience. This role provides technical leadership and guidance within the Citrix tower and more broadly within IT Infrastructure. The Principal Architect – Citrix Engineering, is responsible for designing and deploying solutions with a focus on scalability, performance, and availability, with an emphasis on user experience. This position provides technical leadership to Infrastructure teams and provides the highest level of support for issues in the production and development environments. This position is responsible for working with all IT teams to define the future IT strategy and deliver on technical objectives which align with the overall vision.

SECTION 3: EXPERIENCE, SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE REQUIREMENTS

• Possess a thorough understanding of Microsoft Windows operating systems, core services, applications, Threat Management, Citrix hardware and software technologies.
• Experience in large-scale design and support of Desktop Virtualization technologies utilizing Citrix on VMware with in-depth configuration knowledge of Microsoft productivity applications.
• Experience in performance measurement and optimization software such as Glassbox, LoginVSI, Dynatrace, ControlUp.
• Proven expertise across the entire compute, storage, automation, and cloud stack
• Expertise in networking, load balancing. Clustering, HA
• Excellent consultative, verbal/written communication skills, analytical ability
• Excellent presentation skills and executive delivery
• Excels in a result focused organization.
• Possesses an innovative and change-orientated personality that isn’t afraid to proceed where it was deemed difficult or off limits.
• Vision, leadership, problem solving, initiative, judgment.

Preferred technology skills:

• Working experience in a large enterprise environment with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
• Active Directory and group policy
• PowerShell scripting and automation
• Citrix Cloud
• Citrix Netscaler Management and Troubleshooting
• Citrix PVS / MCS / XenApp
• Citrix Workspace Environment Management
• Flash and traditional disk storage systems (PURE/NetApp/IBM)
• Cisco UCS or Other Hyperconverged Infrastructure
• Azure and/or AWS deployments
• Microsoft Office 365, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint

• Responsible for protecting, securing, and proper handling of all confidential data held by Ascensus to ensure against unauthorized access, improper transmission, and/or unapproved disclosure of information that could result in harm to Ascensus or our clients.
• Our I-Client service philosophy and our Core Values of People Matter, Quality First and Integrity Always® should be visible in your actions on a day-to-day basis showing your support of our organizational culture.
• Evaluate, recommend, and deliver on Citrix performance improvements through implementation of third-party solutions while overseeing performance tuning of the environment.
• Provide operations and technical support for the client Citrix Server environment and associated applications such as XenApp, XenDesktop, FSLogix, Storefront, Citrix PVS & MCS, Netscaler MPX/VPX
• Design and implementation of Group Policies to enforce standards for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
• Responsible for innovation roadmaps, maintenance scheduling, life cycle management, and capacity management for Citrix on-prem and cloud environments and related dependent technologies.
• Primarily responsible for the design, implementation, and support of solutions related to Citrix projects and initiatives.
• Supports Service Delivery Management teams to ensure solutions incorporate requisite operational methods, procedure, facilities, and tools required to achieve defined operational metrics.
• Provide Level 3 support for incidents, investigations, root cause analysis and event documentation/reporting.
• Work with clients and other Application virtualization team members to architect, design and implement Citrix Virtualization Solutions.
• Technical leadership within the infrastructure organization in developing a future vision and roadmap which align with business goals.
• Evaluate new technologies to enhance performance and efficiency
• Review and optimize overall hardware configurations and develop plans to integrate new hardware and software components.
• Lead the evaluation and delivery of a cloud strategy.
• Lead the evaluation and delivery of an enhanced Disaster Recovery practice, and continued progress towards full redundant active datacenters.
• Identify and lead other projects and tasks that achieve the goals of scalability, performance and stability.
• Provide Executive Leadership updates on three-year plan and progress against that plan. Lead the course correction as needed.