1. What is a Solutions Architect at Amida Technology Solutions?

As a Solutions Architect at Amida Technology Solutions, you are at the forefront of designing and building enterprise-grade data platforms that directly impact public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private companies. Amida Technology Solutions specializes in taking data from inception to impact—focusing deeply on interoperability, integrity, governance, and security. In this role, your technical vision will directly support federal agencies, modernizing their data infrastructure and enabling them to turn complex, siloed data into actionable business intelligence and decision-support systems.

The impact of this position is massive. You will be architecting scalable, reliable, and secure Azure-based hybrid cloud applications, often within the highly regulated healthcare domain. You are not just a high-level strategist; you are a hands-on technical leader who will code, design disaster recovery strategies, migrate legacy on-premise systems to the cloud, and translate complex business requirements into robust technical specifications. Your work will empower end-user reporting, advanced analytics, and platform monitoring tools that serve critical national interests.

Expect an entrepreneurial, high-growth environment where fresh ideas and candid conversations are highly valued. Amida Technology Solutions looks for creative, forward-looking thinkers who are passionate about using cutting-edge technology to improve lives. You will be expected to be opinionated about the best ways of doing things, yet capable of aligning quickly with the team once decisions are made. This role requires a unique blend of deep technical expertise, exceptional stakeholder management, and a genuine drive to deliver best-in-class software products.

2. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparation for this role requires a balanced focus on high-level system design, hands-on cloud engineering, and federal compliance standards. You should approach your interviews ready to demonstrate how you bridge the gap between complex technical execution and high-level business needs.

Cloud Architecture & System Design – Interviewers will heavily evaluate your ability to design flexible, reliable, and scalable architectures. You must demonstrate deep expertise in Azure cloud platforms, hybrid cloud environments, and migration strategies from on-premise to cloud infrastructure.

Data Infrastructure & Security – Because Amida Technology Solutions focuses on data integrity and governance, you will be assessed on your knowledge of database design, API integrations (SOAP, XML, JSON, WebAPI), and robust application security. Familiarity with federal compliance (FedRAMP, HIPAA, Section 508) is a major differentiator.

Technical Leadership & Translation – You will be evaluated on your ability to work with both technical and business stakeholders. Strong candidates will show how they gather user input, generate technical requirements, and lead development teams through implementation while enforcing best practices in code management and deployment.

Culture Fit & Communication – Communication is the key to success at Amida Technology Solutions. Interviewers will look for a can-do attitude, an intense attention to detail, and a collaborative spirit. You should demonstrate that you can advocate strongly for your technical choices while maintaining a collegial, multidisciplinary approach—and a sense of humor.

3. Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a Solutions Architect at Amida Technology Solutions is designed to evaluate both your deep technical competency and your ability to navigate the nuances of federal and healthcare data projects. You can expect a rigorous but conversational process that mirrors the collaborative environment of the company.

Typically, the process begins with an initial recruiter screen focusing on your background, clearance eligibility (Public Trust), and basic technical alignment. This is followed by a technical deep-dive with senior engineering leaders, where you will discuss your past architectural decisions, specifically focusing on Azure, cloud migrations, and database design. You will likely face a system design or architecture presentation round where you must whiteboard or talk through a complex hybrid-cloud solution, defending your design choices regarding scalability, disaster recovery, and security. Finally, a behavioral and leadership round with the Deputy Program Manager and other stakeholders will assess your communication skills, requirement-gathering abilities, and cultural alignment.

Throughout these rounds, the underlying theme is your ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders while proving you have the hands-on chops to guide a development team.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression of the interview stages, from initial screening to the final onsite or virtual rounds. Use this to pace your preparation, ensuring you review your foundational coding and API skills early on, while saving your intensive system design and behavioral storytelling practice for the later, more comprehensive rounds. Variations may occur depending on your specific location (DC or Richmond) and the immediate needs of the federal agency client.

4. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Your interviews will be structured around several core competencies critical to the Solutions Architect role. Understanding how Amida Technology Solutions evaluates these areas will help you tailor your responses effectively.

Azure Cloud Architecture & Hybrid Migrations

As the primary cloud environment for this role, your mastery of Azure is paramount. Interviewers need to know that you can design secure, scalable cloud architectures and successfully execute complex migrations from legacy on-premise systems. Strong performance here means moving beyond basic cloud concepts and discussing specific architectural patterns, cost-optimization, and resilience.

Be ready to go over:

• Hybrid Cloud Strategies – Designing systems that securely bridge on-premise and Azure environments.
• Disaster Recovery & Backup – Implementing robust DR strategies using Azure BLOB storage and other native tools.
• Migration Execution – Step-by-step methodologies for moving large-scale data and applications to the cloud with minimal downtime.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), containerization orchestration (Kubernetes, OpenShift), and advanced Azure networking.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through a time you architected a hybrid cloud solution on Azure. How did you handle data synchronization and latency?"
• "Design a disaster recovery strategy for a mission-critical healthcare application using Azure services."
• "How do you evaluate which legacy applications should be re-hosted versus refactored during a cloud migration?"

Data Infrastructure & Integration

Amida Technology Solutions specializes in taking data from inception to impact. You will be evaluated on your ability to collect, reconcile, transform, and standardize data. This requires deep knowledge of database design, backend programming, and API development.

Be ready to go over:

• Database Design – Structuring relational databases (MS SQL) for high-performance reporting and analytics.
• API & Service Integrations – Designing and consuming WebAPIs, utilizing SOAP, XML, and JSON effectively.
• Data Governance – Ensuring data integrity and standardizing data for business intelligence tools.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Advanced Python data processing pipelines and automated data reconciliation techniques.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Explain how you would design a data model to support both real-time user transactions and heavy end-user reporting."
• "How do you ensure data integrity when integrating multiple disparate legacy data sources via WebAPI?"
• "Describe your approach to modernizing a legacy SOAP-based service architecture into a modern RESTful microservices environment."

Security, Compliance & Federal Standards

Working with federal agencies and healthcare data means security cannot be an afterthought. You will be evaluated on your proactive approach to application and cloud security, as well as your familiarity with strict government compliance frameworks.

Be ready to go over:

• Application Security – Secure coding practices, identity management, and threat mitigation.
• Cloud Security Best Practices – Securing Azure environments, managing access controls, and network security.
• Compliance Frameworks – Familiarity with FedRAMP, HIPAA, and Section 508 compliance (accessibility).
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Implementing zero-trust architectures in a federal context.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How do you ensure an architecture remains compliant with HIPAA and FedRAMP standards throughout the development lifecycle?"
• "Describe a time you had to balance strict security requirements with the need for high system performance."
• "What steps do you take to ensure that front-end reporting components are Section 508 compliant?"

Technical Leadership & Stakeholder Management

A successful Solutions Architect must lead by influence. You will be evaluated on how you translate ambiguous business needs into concrete technical specifications and how you guide development teams to execute that vision.

Be ready to go over:

• Requirement Gathering – Working with clients to specify business, functional, and technical requirements.
• Development Leadership – Ensuring adherence to testing processes, code management, and deployment best practices.
• Navigating Ambiguity – Collaborating with technical and business stakeholders to understand the big picture.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to translate a very vague business requirement into a detailed technical design specification."
• "How do you handle disagreements with a development team regarding an architectural choice you have made?"
• "Describe your process for ensuring that your development and visualization teams adhere to strict testing and code management best practices."

5. Key Responsibilities

As a Solutions Architect at Amida Technology Solutions, your day-to-day work will be highly dynamic, bridging the gap between high-level client strategy and deep technical execution. You will work closely with government employees and other stakeholders to design solutions that leverage new cloud-based data platforms, ultimately modernizing their data infrastructure and improving data governance processes.

A significant portion of your time will be spent architecting and actively coding enterprise applications, particularly within the healthcare domain. You will translate gathered business requirements into precise design specifications, serving as the technical north star for Amida's development teams. This involves architecting Azure-based hybrid cloud applications, planning complex migrations from on-premise to cloud infrastructure, and designing critical disaster recovery and backup strategies using Azure BLOB storage.

Beyond individual technical contributions, you will act as a leader and mentor. You will guide developers and visualization analysts through implementation phases, ensuring strict adherence to Amida Technology Solutions’s development, testing, and deployment best practices. You will constantly collaborate with both technical and business stakeholders to ensure the architecture remains flexible, reliable, and scalable as project demands evolve.

6. Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be competitive for the Solutions Architect role, you must possess a blend of extensive software engineering experience, deep cloud architecture knowledge, and strong interpersonal skills.

• Must-have technical skills – 10+ years of overall software solutions experience, with at least 5+ years specifically working with Azure cloud platforms. You must have 5+ years of experience in database design, Python, MS SQL, WebAPI, SOAP, XML, and JSON. Deep knowledge of cloud and application security is strictly required.
• Must-have soft skills – Strong oral and written communication skills, superior attention to detail, and exceptional time management. You must be self-motivated to support end-to-end lifecycle activities and possess an exceptional drive to deliver best-in-class products.
• Clearance requirement – You must have the ability to obtain a Public Trust security clearance.
• Preferred qualifications – Familiarity with VA infrastructure and healthcare data sources is a massive plus. Experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), and knowledge of federal compliance frameworks (FedRAMP, HIPAA, Section 508) will strongly differentiate your candidacy. Solid grounding in OOP and SOA principles is also highly desired.

7. Common Interview Questions

The questions below represent the patterns and themes frequently encountered by candidates interviewing for architectural roles at federal tech contractors like Amida Technology Solutions. Use these to practice structuring your thoughts, rather than memorizing exact answers.

System Architecture & Azure Cloud

Interviewers use these questions to test your hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure, specifically Azure, and your ability to design resilient systems.

• Design an Azure-based architecture for a healthcare application that requires high availability and strict data isolation.
• How would you architect a disaster recovery solution using Azure BLOB storage for a database with a strict RPO and RTO?
• Walk me through your strategy for migrating a monolithic, on-premise application to a hybrid cloud environment.
• What are the key considerations when designing a flexible and scalable front-end reporting component for large datasets?
• How do you decide when to use a relational database (like MS SQL) versus a NoSQL solution in a cloud environment?

Data Engineering & Integration

These questions evaluate your ability to handle complex data interoperability, transformation, and API design.

• Explain your approach to standardizing and transforming messy, siloed data from multiple government agencies.
• How do you design a WebAPI to handle high-volume data ingestion securely?
• Discuss a time you had to optimize a poorly performing MS SQL database. What steps did you take?
• How do you handle versioning and backward compatibility when updating enterprise APIs (SOAP or REST)?
• Describe your experience building data pipelines using Python.

Security & Federal Compliance

Given the nature of the clients, your understanding of security frameworks and data protection is critical.

• How do you integrate security into the software development lifecycle (DevSecOps)?
• What architectural design patterns do you use to ensure compliance with HIPAA?
• Explain how you would design a system to meet FedRAMP security controls.
• How do you manage identity and access control in a hybrid Azure environment?
• What is your process for ensuring an application meets Section 508 accessibility compliance?

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

These questions assess your cultural fit, communication style, and ability to lead development teams.

• Tell me about a time you had to gather requirements from a non-technical stakeholder who didn't know exactly what they wanted.
• How do you ensure that a team of developers adheres to your design specifications and testing best practices?
• Describe a situation where you had a strong opinion on a technical direction, but the team or client chose a different path. How did you handle it?
• How do you balance the need to deliver a project quickly with the need to build a scalable, long-term architecture?
• Give an example of how you have mentored junior developers or analysts on your team.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need to have prior experience with the VA or federal government? While prior experience with VA infrastructure or federal agencies is listed as preferred, it is not strictly required. However, you must be capable of obtaining a Public Trust clearance and should demonstrate a strong understanding of the compliance and security constraints typical of government work.

Q: How technical is the interview process for a Solutions Architect? The process is highly technical. You are expected to be a hands-on architect. Be prepared to discuss specific coding paradigms (Python, MS SQL, WebAPI), detailed Azure configurations, and deep system design principles. This is not purely a high-level strategy role.

Q: What does the hybrid work schedule look like? Amida Technology Solutions prefers candidates who can work a hybrid schedule from their offices in Washington, DC, or Richmond, VA. You should clarify the exact days-in-office expectations with your recruiter, as it may vary based on the specific federal client's current policies.

Q: What is the culture like at Amida Technology Solutions? The company prides itself on a collegial, multidisciplinary environment. They explicitly look for people who are "opinionated about the best ways of doing things, and align quickly to decisions." You should bring fresh ideas and a can-do attitude, but also a sense of humor and a collaborative mindset.

Q: How should I prepare for the system design rounds? Focus your system design preparation on hybrid cloud scenarios, data interoperability, and security-first architectures. Practice whiteboarding solutions that incorporate Azure native services, robust disaster recovery, and clear data governance flows.

9. Other General Tips

• Embrace the "Opinionated but Aligned" Philosophy: Amida Technology Solutions explicitly values candidates who have strong technical opinions but can commit to a team decision once it is made. Prepare behavioral stories that highlight your ability to advocate for your architecture, debate constructively, and ultimately support the final consensus.
• Highlight End-to-End Ownership: The job description emphasizes taking data "from inception to impact." Ensure your resume and interview answers reflect your ability to handle the entire lifecycle—from gathering initial requirements to deploying scalable solutions and monitoring them.
• Speak the Language of Compliance: Even if you aren't a compliance officer, dropping knowledge about FedRAMP, HIPAA, and Section 508 in your architectural discussions will immediately signal that you understand the federal contracting landscape.

• Showcase Your Communication Skills: The prompt states "Communication is the key to success at Amida." Treat every interview answer as a demonstration of your ability to present complex information clearly, concisely, and persuasively.
• Don't Hide Your Personality: The company explicitly notes that "a sense of humor is an asset at Amida." While remaining professional, don't be afraid to show your authentic self and build genuine rapport with your interviewers.

10. Summary & Next Steps

Interviewing for the Solutions Architect position at Amida Technology Solutions is an exciting opportunity to step into a role that directly impacts public infrastructure and healthcare data systems. You will be challenged to bring your deepest technical knowledge in Azure, data engineering, and system design, while simultaneously demonstrating the leadership and communication skills required to guide complex federal projects to success.

Focus your preparation on clearly articulating your past architectural decisions, brushing up on hybrid cloud migration strategies, and practicing how you translate ambiguous business requirements into actionable, secure technical designs. Remember that the interviewers are looking for a colleague—someone who is detail-oriented, driven, and capable of navigating the unique constraints of government technology with a positive, can-do attitude.

This compensation data provides a baseline understanding of the market rate for Solutions Architect roles in the DC area. Use this information to set realistic expectations and guide your negotiation strategy, keeping in mind that final offers will depend heavily on your specific years of experience, mastery of Azure, and clearance status.

Approach your interviews with confidence. You have the experience and the technical foundation to excel in this process. Take the time to explore additional interview insights and practice resources on Dataford to refine your delivery. Trust in your preparation, lean into your expertise, and show Amida Technology Solutions exactly how you can turn their data challenges into impactful solutions. Good luck!