Cloud Observability Architect

Job description

We are seeking a Cloud Observability Architect to serve as the strategic leader responsible for redefining how Tyler measures, monitors, and understands the health of its cloud and SaaS platforms. This role will drive a fundamental shift from traditional infrastructure-centric monitoring to a modern observability practice focused on application performance, customer experience, service reliability, and business outcomes. Partnering with engineering, product, platform, and operations teams, the architect will establish enterprise observability standards, modernize tooling and processes, and foster a culture where telemetry, automation, and actionable insights are embedded throughout the software development lifecycle. The role will champion an application-first approach to observability, leveraging application performance monitoring (APM), distributed tracing, logging, metrics, and infrastructure telemetry to provide end-to-end visibility across Tyler's critical business services. Success in this role will be measured by improved service reliability, faster incident detection and resolution, reduced operational costs, optimized cloud investments, and increased visibility into the performance and health of Tyler's most important customer-facing applications and services. Responsibilities Lead the transformation of Tyler's observability strategy by championing an application-first approach focused on application performance, service reliability, customer experience, and business outcomes. Define, build, and evolve the enterprise observability architecture, establishing standardized platforms, integrations, and telemetry patterns that promote consistency, scalability, and operational efficiency across the organization. Develop and maintain an observability platform strategy that consolidates tooling, reduces complexity, and drives adoption of enterprise standards while balancing flexibility for diverse business needs. Serve as the primary observability subject matter expert and trusted advisor to engineering, product, SRE, Cloud Operations, FinOps, governance, and executive leadership teams. Evaluate, recommend, and guide the implementation of observability technologies, frameworks, and best practices to improve visibility across applications, services, platforms, and infrastructure. Drive the transition from infrastructure-centric monitoring to modern observability practices utilizing application performance monitoring (APM), distributed tracing, metrics, logging, and telemetry analytics. Establish and mature an enterprise observability practice through standards, governance, architecture patterns, community engagement, and operational policies that position observability as a core engineering discipline. Partner with engineering and operational teams to define and implement Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and reliability frameworks that support customer commitments, SLA reporting, and operational excellence. Define and govern telemetry collection, retention, alerting, and incident detection standards to ensure actionable insights, reduce alert fatigue, optimize observability spend, and improve service reliability. Collaborate with FinOps teams to optimize observability-related costs through effective telemetry management, data lifecycle practices, and platform governance. Build and foster a community of practice that promotes observability adoption, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement across development, operations, and platform engineering teams. Manage strategic relationships with observability vendors and partners, influencing product roadmaps, evaluating emerging capabilities, and ensuring Tyler maximizes value from its observability investments. Analyze operational data and telemetry to identify opportunities for improved reliability, performance, customer experience, and cost optimization. Build consensus and influence technical direction across diverse stakeholder groups without direct authority. Take ownership of enterprise technologies and platforms, driving continuous improvement, adoption, and long-term strategic evolution. Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences, including executive leadership. Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical field; equivalent professional experience will be considered. 10+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), DevOps, Platform Engineering, Observability Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or Systems Engineering roles. 3+ years of experience architecting, implementing, and evolving enterprise-scale observability solutions within complex cloud, SaaS, or hybrid environments. Demonstrated experience leading technical transformation initiatives and driving adoption of new engineering practices across multiple teams and organizations. Strong experience assessing existing monitoring and observability ecosystems, developing strategic roadmaps, and guiding enterprise technology decisions. Deep understanding of modern observability principles, including application performance monitoring (APM), distributed tracing, logging, metrics, telemetry pipelines, and service reliability engineering (SRE) practices. Experience defining and implementing Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), reliability metrics, and operational performance frameworks. Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures, microservices, and application-centric monitoring strategies. Experience operating within enterprise governance, security, compliance, and change management frameworks. Exceptional communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence engineering teams, senior leadership, and executive stakeholders. Demonstrated understanding of change management and operational controls within regulated environments. Ability to operate within compliance frameworks and security standards, including PCI, CJIS, SSAE, and other applicable regulatory requirements. Will be required to successfully complete a fingerprint-based background check to support CJIS-related responsibilities. Preferred Qualifications Hands-on experience with observability platforms such as Datadog, New Relic, Sumo Logic, Amazon CloudWatch, Dynatrace, Grafana, Splunk, or similar technologies. Experience with OpenTelemetry and enterprise telemetry standardization initiatives. Strong understanding of Kubernetes, containers, cloud platforms, CI/CD pipelines, platform engineering, and modern software delivery practices. Experience establishing enterprise observability governance, communities of practice, architecture standards, or telemetry management frameworks. Experience partnering with FinOps organizations to optimize observability spend and telemetry-related cloud costs. Background supporting regulated environments, including government, public sector, payments, healthcare, or enterprise SaaS organizations. Experience designing, integrating, or implementing AI-assisted observability, AIOps, automated incident response, or intelligent operations workflows. Industry certifications in cloud platforms, SRE, observability, architecture, or related disciplines are desirable.