CITRIX ARCHITECT JOB DESCRIPTION

A Citrix Architect designs and maintains the virtual desktop and application delivery environment that end users depend on daily. The role carries technical ownership of environments supporting 5,000-plus users and spans authentication, load balancing, and disaster recovery across primary and backup data center locations. Work is split between proactive monitoring of day-to-day operations and longer upgrade and expansion projects. This ownership sits squarely within the infrastructure team, not the help desk.

As the Citrix Architect, this person owns the design, deployment, and ongoing health of the enterprise virtual application and desktop platform, including disaster recovery readiness across NOC and DR sites. The role partners with vendors and other IT teams to keep application delivery compliant with platform standards.

Career Impact: Owning a 5,000-plus-user virtual desktop platform builds a track record of large-scale infrastructure ownership that few IT careers offer this early.

Business Impact: The environment this role maintains determines whether end users can reach their applications at all, making disaster recovery readiness a direct measure of the business's operational continuity.

Growth Opportunity: Depth in application delivery controller configuration and DR architecture opens a path toward broader network or infrastructure architect mandates.

• Design virtual desktop and application delivery environments spanning production and disaster recovery sites.
• Configure authentication and load balancing controls to distribute workloads across multiple servers.
• Lead upgrade planning for the virtual desktop environment, covering both hardware and software components.
• Monitor daily platform operations to catch and resolve performance issues before they affect users.
• Coordinate with application vendors to research and resolve environment defects.
• Mentor junior engineers supporting the end-user computing environment.
• Document environment architecture and deployment standards for ongoing reference.
• Support disaster recovery events by executing failover and restoration procedures.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• 5 or more years of hands-on experience designing and deploying large-scale virtual desktop and application delivery environments.
• Experience configuring authentication, load balancing, and certificate management for multi-server environments.
• Experience planning and executing environment upgrades across hardware and software components.
• Working knowledge of Windows Server administration in an enterprise environment.
• Strong troubleshooting ability across three-tier application and platform architecture.
• Ability to communicate solution architecture clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Professional-level certification in enterprise networking or virtualization architecture.
• Experience automating environment configuration through scripting.
• Prior experience mentoring or leading junior infrastructure engineers.

• Platform uptime, percentage, reflecting the availability of the virtual desktop environment to end users.
• Disaster recovery failover time, hours, measuring readiness across NOC and DR sites.
• Mean time to resolution, hours, for escalated environment incidents.
• User capacity supported per environment, count, reflecting scale of ownership.
• Change/upgrade success rate, percentage, measuring upgrade planning quality.
• Typical tools: Virtual desktop platforms (commonly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops); application delivery controllers (commonly Citrix ADC/NetScaler).

• Base Salary Range: $115,000 to $145,000 per year.
• Bonus: Annual performance bonus, typically 5-10% of base.
• Equity: Rare at this level outside larger tech employers.
• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• PTO: 15 to 20 days annually.
• Common Perks: Remote/hybrid flexibility, certification reimbursement.

Figures are estimates based on general US market benchmarks and may be outdated. Adjust based on location, company size, and seniority level.

Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, or any other protected characteristic under applicable federal, state, and local law. Reasonable accommodations are available to qualified individuals upon request. Offers of employment are contingent on successful completion of a background check, and all candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

The Citrix Architect owns the design and delivery of enterprise end-user computing solutions, providing architectural guidance across virtualization, cloud infrastructure, and virtual desktop environments. Collaborating with internal product and engineering teams throughout development and launch, the architect supports the pre-sales process and delivers consultative services that strengthen client technical credibility.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain technical credibility within the data center industry through demonstration of thought leadership.
• Work collaboratively with internal product and engineering organizations during development, launch, and continued refinement of products and solutions.
• Provide expert technical architectural support and guidance for solution opportunities involving virtualization, cloud infrastructure, virtual end-user computing, and integration with third-party products.
• Participate in the pre-sales process to understand client business, technical objectives, and product requirements.
• Develop and release sales, technical, and service delivery collateral including deployment guides, best practices, and solution reference architectures.
• Collaborate with engineering, marketing, consulting services, and sales to design, validate, and build collateral.
• Create technology solutions and participate in services engineering activities such as proofs-of-concept, pilots, use case development, and solution validation.
• Support sales efforts with delivery management and practice management teams.
• Contribute to frameworks, develop reusable solutions, and mentor internal and external stakeholders on the use of solutions.
• Implement solutions to meet business and technical objectives.
• Lead customer-facing workshops, assessments, and deployments and create deliverable content.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience designing and deploying Data Center solutions including virtualization, cloud, virtual desktops, infrastructure-as-a-service, and IT-as-a-service.
• Experience designing and deploying Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Citrix App Layering, Workspace Environment Management, and Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway for large-scale environments of 5,000+ users.
• Experience with User Environment Management solutions such as AppSense Environment Management and Liquidware ProfileUnity.
• Experience with monitoring tools such as Liquidware Stratusphere and ControlUP.
• Experience with endpoint solutions such as Igel and Wyse, and application management solutions such as Microsoft SCCM.
• Broad base of technical skills, business acumen, and ability to communicate solution architecture to clients, third parties, and project teams.
• Strong listening and interpersonal skills, ability to solve complex problems, and aptitude to visualize solutions.
• Ability to provide leadership in a team environment and mentor junior team members.

Embedded within the IT organization, the Citrix Architect delivers advanced Citrix ADC architecture across authentication, load balancing, and SSL certificate management to support platform integrity. Working closely with application vendors and development teams during upgrades and disaster recovery events, the architect ensures deployed applications comply with existing platform standards and maintain redundancy across NOC and DR locations.

Core Functions

• Collaborate with all Information Technology teams to vet, strategize, and deploy applications.
• Ensure current and future application platform integrity and performance via collaboration with other IT teams and application vendors.
• Facilitate the deployment of all applications to users via various industry-standard methods.
• Work with development teams to ensure developed applications comply with existing platform and deployment architecture.
• Consult with principal stakeholders on external retail application deployment onto existing platform architecture to ensure purchased applications meet platform standards.
• Provide advanced Citrix architecture support for ongoing and upcoming projects.
• Lead the analysis, planning, and upgrade of the existing Citrix environment, including hardware and software.
• Provide assistance during a disaster recovery event.
• Configure Authentication, Authorization, and Auditing access control, Workload Load Balancing, and SSL Certificate Management to spread workloads across multiple servers, providing seamless capacity expansion and redundancy.
• Administrate authoritative DNS to provide responses to public DNS queries for all services.
• Configure and manage Citrix AppFirewall to provide an additional level of security and protection to public-facing websites.
• Manage and deploy certificates and Advanced Policy Engine policies using built-in features and regular expression language.
• Design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot Citrix SDX networking hardware and software platforms, including connectivity, virtual instance deployment, and management across local NOC and DR locations.
• Maintain consistent platform design and deployment standards and participate in all phases of application research, design, and deployment.

Education & Experience

• High school diploma or equivalent.
• CCP-N (Citrix Certified Professional Networking) for Citrix ADC version 12 or later.
• 7+ years of documented experience with Citrix or related technologies.
• 3+ years of experience designing, deploying, and maintaining Citrix Remote Apps and Desktops environments.
• 3+ years of experience designing, deploying, and maintaining a multi-host Citrix ADC environment.
• Understanding of 3-tiered application and platform architecture and related troubleshooting.
• Proficiency in PowerShell and VBScript.

Working alongside other technology architects and Citrix specialists, the Citrix Architect builds and maintains technical documentation for expansion and maintenance of the Citrix infrastructure. Partnering with the Citrix vendor on day-to-day operations, the architect proactively monitors the environment and manages Windows Server images to keep applications delivered through the platform running reliably.

Primary Duties

• Collaborate closely with other technology architects, the Citrix vendor, and other Citrix Specialists in the team.
• Design and maintain technical documentation for the Citrix environment.
• Take technical responsibility for the overall Citrix environment, including expansion and maintenance of the Citrix infrastructure.
• Provide support for day-to-day operations of the Citrix environment, including proactive monitoring and management.
• Create and maintain Windows Server images.
• Prepare and maintain applications delivered via the Citrix platform.
• Actively support projects and Problem Management processes associated with the Citrix environment.
• Manage Wyse terminals within Wyse Manager, including configuration and diagnosis.
• Research, evaluate, and recommend changes in hardware, software, data communications, and techniques to contribute to more effective automated systems capabilities.
• Improve the functioning of internal processes via proposals for process automation or streamlining.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of hands-on experience with installation, configuration, management, and troubleshooting of complex Citrix infrastructures.
• Architect-level Citrix XenApp skills and broad experience in Citrix Virtual Apps, Virtual Desktops, Citrix XenServer, and Citrix NetScaler 1X and higher.
• Knowledge of Windows Server 2016 and higher operating systems.
• Knowledge of Citrix Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Citrix Provisioning Services, and Citrix WEM.
• Experience with App-V.
• Citrix CCE-V skill level.
• Strong communication skills.

Blending modern cloud-native software development with Citrix network automation, the Citrix Architect leads the design and deployment of scalable solutions using Test-Driven Development practices. Operating across agile feature teams and product and UX stakeholders, the architect automates deployment of NetScaler, ADM, and Cisco security appliances while coaching engineers and reporting the team's impact to senior leadership.

Duties

• Apply strong modern cloud-based patterns and software development practices in building and deploying solutions.
• Write clean, well-documented, and well-tested code using Test-Driven Development.
• Understand authentication, entitlements, and security constructs.
• Lead code reviews, design sessions, group problem solving, and architecture reviews.
• Work in agile constructs throughout the software life cycle, ensuring sustainable software releases.
• Collaborate with Product and UX teams on backlog, roadmaps, and feature brainstorming.
• Participate in and run agile rituals such as daily stand-ups and retrospectives.
• Coach other engineers on agile development practices.
• Automate the deployment of Citrix NetScaler and ADM appliances and Cisco ASA, ISE, and FXOS VPN appliances.
• Lead software-based feature teams and complex products from idea to successful execution.
• Help the team develop new skills and advance in their careers.
• Provide visibility into the team's impact to senior leadership.
• Collaborate with customers and key stakeholders.

Technical Qualifications

• Bachelor's or equivalent degree.
• 7+ years of experience supporting complex network infrastructures and developing, deploying, and managing cloud native services at scale.
• Experience with NetScaler 12x/13x or Cisco ASA, ISE, and FXOS appliance configuration and deployment at enterprise scale.
• Experience with SAML-based authentication methods.
• Experience with one or more of the following: Java, C#, iOS/Android, React.js, Python, or Golang.
• Experience in modern SDLC practices including CI/CD and source code management using GIT and Bitbucket.
• Experience with Agile methodologies using Scrum/Kanban and JIRA/Confluence.
• Experience leading agile teams on products from idea to successful execution.
• People management and coaching experience.
• Strong communication, analytical, and teamwork skills.

A key member of the IT support team, the Citrix Architect shapes the resolution of application defects and vendor escalations across the Citrix and desktop computing environment. Collaborating across the IT department and mentoring junior engineers, the architect automates issue diagnosis through scripting and contributes to cross-functional projects that keep end-user technology running smoothly.

Functions

• Identify, research, and resolve defects within a given application and manage communication with application vendors for issue resolution.
• Assist junior engineers with support of enterprise applications and software across end-user environments, including local operating systems and Citrix.
• Research and test solutions to technical issues, including using scripting methods to automate where possible.
• Assist with resolution of escalated incidents and participate in problem management activities.
• Work with other members of the IT Department to solve complex user technical problems related to desktop computing and applications.
• Participate in cross-functional team projects to implement new or updated technology.

Position Requirements

• 5+ years of strong engineering, architecture, deployment, and implementation experience in large-scale Citrix environments.
• Expert experience with NetScaler and desktop virtualization technologies.
• Strong Windows Active Directory experience.
• Proficiency in Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop, HDXInsight, StoreFront, and PVS.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Windows Server, PowerShell, Active Directory, GPOs, and App-V.
• Proficiency in AppSense roaming profiles, mandatory profiles, and the AppSense DesktopNow product suite.
• Proficiency in VMware.
• Developer skill set for automation primarily in PowerShell, with the ability to create custom portals and facilitate SSO integration.
• Strong networking knowledge.