CHIEF ARCHITECT JOB DESCRIPTION

Few engineering organizations survive the scale jump from a few hundred to thousands of concurrent tenants with their architectural coherence intact. When that coherence fractures, release velocity stalls, cloud spend balloons, and SOC 2 and GDPR compliance posture erodes under the weight of ungoverned service sprawl. The Chief Architect is the person accountable for preventing that fracture: the executive-level technical authority who owns the enterprise architecture roadmap, governs design decisions across distributed engineering teams, and ensures that every major platform choice aligns SaaS multi-tenancy requirements with long-term scalability. That is not a committee function.

As the Chief Architect, you will define and steward the technical vision across cloud-native product portfolios, translating multi-year business strategy into architectural standards, governance frameworks, and roadmaps that measurably improve release frequency and platform resilience. You will lead a team of senior architects, report to the CTO or VP of Engineering, and hold voting accountability in architectural review forums spanning product, infrastructure, and security domains.

Career Impact: Owning enterprise architecture governance at the Chief Architect level, including chairing ARBs and defining cloud-native standards for multi-tenant SaaS platforms, establishes domain authority that is recognized by CTOs, PE-backed boards, and enterprise buyers when evaluating technical leadership candidates.

Business Impact: The architectural decisions made in this role directly determine cloud spend trajectories, SOC 2 audit outcomes, and the platform's ability to onboard enterprise accounts at scale, making this one of the highest-leverage technical seats in the organization.

Growth Opportunity: The Chief Architect role is the direct stepping stone to CTO or Distinguished Engineer trajectories, and the depth of distributed systems expertise and vendor evaluation experience developed here commands a measurably higher market value at that next level.

• Define and maintain the enterprise architecture roadmap, aligning multi-year platform strategy with cloud-native scalability and SaaS multi-tenancy requirements.
• Lead architectural governance across distributed engineering teams, chairing design authority forums and architectural review boards to enforce standards consistently.
• Establish and evolve microservices design patterns, API contract standards, and distributed systems best practices for use across all product and infrastructure teams.
• Collaborate with the CTO, product leadership, and engineering executives to translate business priorities into concrete technology choices and documented trade-off rationale.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, conduct proof-of-concept initiatives, and produce recommendations that inform the platform technology selection process.
• Mentor and develop a team of senior architects, setting performance expectations and building architectural competency across engineering squads.
• Own security and compliance architecture including SOC 2 and GDPR design controls, partnering with security engineering to embed requirements from design through deployment.
• Produce architectural metrics, maturity reports, and roadmap status updates for technology and company leadership on a regular cadence.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• 10 or more years of progressive software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a senior or principal architect role leading enterprise-scale platform design.
• Demonstrated expertise in microservices architecture, cloud-native distributed systems, and containerization at production scale.
• Proven ability to design and govern multi-tenant SaaS platforms, including scalability patterns, data isolation strategies, and API contract management.
• Experience leading architectural review boards or equivalent governance forums, with a track record of communicating design rationale to executive stakeholders.
• Proficiency in cloud platform architecture across at least one major provider, including networking, serverless, object storage, and security service design.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated ability to produce architectural decision records, RFCs, and roadmap documents for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience managing, mentoring, and developing teams of senior architects or principal engineers.

• Experience architecting for SOC 2 Type II compliance and GDPR data residency requirements within a SaaS product environment.
• Exposure to data architecture disciplines including data mesh, event streaming platforms, and real-time analytics pipeline design.
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or equivalent, applied in a technology governance context.
• Proven track record contributing to or leading technical due diligence for mergers, acquisitions, or strategic vendor partnerships.

• Architecture review throughput rate, tracking the percentage of submissions resolved within the SLA without re-submission.
• Platform release frequency delta, measuring improvement in deployment cadence attributable to reduced architectural blocking.
• SOC 2 audit findings count per cycle, reflecting the effectiveness of compliance controls embedded at the design stage.
• Cloud cost variance versus roadmap forecast, measuring accuracy of architectural spend projections across product lines.
• Architectural debt ratio, tracking the proportion of active services with documented remediation plans against total service count.
• Typical tools: architecture diagramming and documentation (commonly Lucidchart or Confluence); cloud platforms (commonly AWS or Azure); container orchestration (commonly Kubernetes).

• Base Salary Range: $210,000 to $280,000 annually, depending on seniority and location
• Bonus: Annual performance bonus of 15% to 25% of base salary
• Equity: RSUs or stock options typical; 4-year vesting with 1-year cliff
• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer contribution of 80% to 100%
• PTO: Unlimited or 20 to 25 days annually plus company holidays
• Common Perks: Remote or hybrid flexibility, home office stipend, conference speaking and attendance budget

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

Successful completion of a background check is required as a condition of employment. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation to participate in any part of the hiring process are encouraged to make that request in advance. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

The Chief Architect owns enterprise-wide architectural blueprints and roadmaps, overseeing the design and implementation of integrated systems that align IT with business strategy across multichannel retail and IoT-based transactional services. Reporting to senior leadership, the role shapes platform decisions affecting SAP ERP, master data management, and machine learning methods, delivering architectural governance that drives revenue and operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain current and future state business architecture.
• Design and oversee implementation of end-to-end integrated systems.
• Deliver architectural initiatives that drive revenue and improve efficiency in line with business strategy.
• Develop and maintain current and future state architectural blueprints and an aspirational architectural roadmap for the enterprise.
• Communicate architectural decisions, plans, goals, and strategies.
• Gain organisational commitment for enterprise-level architecture and infrastructure initiatives.
• Provide architectural direction to Enterprise Architects, Business Architects, and Solution Architects.
• Develop architectural metrics and reports for executive, business, and IT management.
• Oversee the design and implementation of enterprise data and metadata structures.
• Create a plan to integrate business systems and workflows in support of business strategy.
• Develop and enforce best practices for master data management, integration, and machine learning methods.
• Initiate and deliver architectural programs that align IT with business strategy.

Required Qualifications

• Degree in engineering, management of information systems, or computer science.
• Minimum 10 years of related technology experience and 5 to 7 years of related management experience.
• Extensive technical expertise across IT platform development and design, including SAP ERP systems, platform architecture, online shop systems, web design, and application design.
• Experience with data handling, Java, and open-source technologies.
• Experience with mobile forms and payment gateways.
• Experience in service and infrastructure environments operating 24/7/365.
• Experience with common legacy systems and databases including AS400, COBOL, and DB2.
• Profound leadership experience in managing IT staff, programmers, external service providers, and freelancers.
• Strong strategic thinking and project management competence with excellent networking skills.
• Experience in international and complex matrix organisations with diverse internal and external stakeholders.
• Strong diplomatic and negotiation skills at senior management and board level.
• Strong networking and interpersonal skills with a proven track record of building relationships and establishing credibility in national and international settings.

Embedded within the enterprise architecture practice, the Chief Architect designs and governs reusable accelerators, microservices-based architecture, and detailed technical designs that enable interoperability within and outside client environments. Working closely with development, integration, and business teams, the role delivers scalable system architecture incorporating AI, ML, and NLP capabilities that support the generation of new business through technology-based solutions.

Core Functions

• Provide leadership by designing and implementing architecture, strategies, guidelines, standards, and best practices to ensure interoperability within and outside of client environments.
• Gather required technology inputs, make required assumptions, and develop high-level architecture and detailed technical design.
• Bring a focus on microservices-based architecture, influencing modern and mature practices including AI, ML, and NLP that promote scale.
• Design and govern reusable accelerators, design patterns, and reusable technical components such as error handling and logging.
• Produce detailed component specifications and translate these into detailed designs for implementation using selected products.
• Provide advice on technical aspects of system development and integration, including requests for changes and deviations from specifications, and ensure that relevant technical strategies, policies, standards, and practices are applied correctly.
• Specify and design large or complex systems.
• Select appropriate design standards, methods, and tools consistent with agreed enterprise and solution architectures, and ensure they are applied effectively.
• Review other system designs to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources, and integration of multiple systems and technologies.

Qualifications & Experience

• Academic background in computer science or a related field, plus experience in the design, architecture, and development of large-scale systems, applications, and tools.
• Track record in successfully supporting the generation of new businesses by providing technology-based solutions.
• Experience leading architectural work for large-scale enterprise projects representing global strategic initiatives.
• Experience in solving complex software development and design issues and responding to new demands, priorities, and challenges.
• Strong experience in modern architectures including microservices, containerisation, AI, ML, and NLP that promote scale.
• Knowledge of cloud computing infrastructure solutions.
• Entrepreneurial spirit with a passion for technology and the ability to balance business needs with technical advances.
• Ability to take a multifaceted approach to design and understand applications from enterprise-level to low-level technical view.
• Strong ownership of open-ended problems with the ability to drive them to completion.
• Exemplary consulting skills with a track record of applying these skills as a practising architect.
• Strong influencing and facilitation skills to engage subject matter experts, define requirements, and gain credibility on critical business issues at the executive level.

Reporting to executive leadership, the Chief Architect leads the architecture team in solving complex problems, aligning the overall technical and architectural vision with the strategic direction and business needs of the organisation. Partnering with product management, developers, and engineers, the role builds high-performance architecture and ensures that software meets all requirements of quality, security, modifiability, and extensibility.

Primary Duties

• Own the overall technical and architectural vision.
• Align architecture needs with the strategic direction and business needs of the organisation.
• Lead the architecture team to solve complex problems and resolve architectural decisions with informed design choices.
• Represent and socialise architecture to executives, vendors, stakeholders, staff, and external communities.
• Analyse, vet, and recommend acquisitions, vendors, designs, technologies, third-party tools and integrations, and develop proofs-of-concept and prototypes.
• Provide insight and expertise into current and emerging industry trends to promote new ideas, innovate concepts, and resolve critical issues.
• Work with abstract ideas and intangible variables, identify and evaluate fundamental issues, and provide strategy and direction.
• Develop high-performance architects within the organisation.
• Provide technical oversight, guidance, and coaching to architects, product management, developers, and engineers.
• Ensure that software meets all requirements of quality, security, modifiability, and extensibility.
• Contribute to all levels of architecture applicable to the relevant area of expertise.

Skills & Qualifications

• Broad experience in technical architecture, system architecture, solution architecture, and enterprise architecture.
• Experience in software development with Golang, Python, Java, or a similar high-level language.
• Broad knowledge of current industry and emerging technologies with the ability to compare, contrast, and innovate upon them.
• Mastery of technical details, best practices, and design patterns across multiple domains.
• Track record of making and defending effective decisions using data and research, and accepting feedback.
• Track record of explaining technical concepts using audience-specific language for audiences with varying technical skill levels.
• Previous security experience preferred.

Sitting at the intersection of enterprise architecture and software development, the Chief Architect develops and maintains architectural blueprints and roadmaps, overseeing RESTful API governance, enterprise data structures, and compliance processes across all production systems. Operating across product development teams, data leadership, and corporate partner initiatives, the role enables business agility by defining best practices, identifying architectural risks, and delivering architectural maturity reporting to internal and external stakeholders.

Duties

• Collaborate with the CTO, development teams, operations, and department leaders to define business requirements, technical plans, and roadmaps.
• Oversee system and application architecture and articulate decisions impacting quality, security, and scalability.
• Develop and maintain current and planned state architectural blueprints and roadmaps.
• Conduct advanced research on new technologies and techniques, providing recommendations and roadmaps for implementation.
• Define and promote best practices, standards, and policies with a focus on elegance and simplicity.
• Oversee and govern all RESTful API endpoint definitions, including REST and HATEOAS.
• Work with data leadership to define and implement enterprise data and metadata structures.
• Provide architectural consulting to internal projects and corporate partner project initiatives.
• Support product development teams with design and implementation oversight.
• Develop, communicate, and deploy Enterprise Architecture governance and compliance processes, including auditing for all production systems.
• Identify architectural risks and propose alternatives and solutions.
• Develop architectural metrics and produce architectural status and maturity reports on a regular basis.

Experience & Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent experience.
• 8 to 10 years of experience in software development.
• Expertise in object-oriented languages and design patterns, cloud and SaaS application development, microservice and SOA environments, RESTful APIs, SQL and data storage, and ETL and batch processing.
• Experience with dynamic languages including Ruby, Python, and JavaScript.
• Experience with frameworks including Rails and ReactJS.
• Experience with TOGAF and other architectural frameworks.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office 365 Suite including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
• Strong empathy for customers via customer support.
• Excellent verbal, written, and group communication and presentation skills.
• Excellent organisational and analytical skills with the ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment.

A key member of the solutions leadership team, the Chief Architect leads the architecture and roadmap of the Enterprise Search solution, collaborating with cloud, stack, and other solutions leads to align priorities and make appropriate technology choices. Collaborating across partner organisations, customers, and internal engineering teams, the role shapes the adoption of enterprise search capabilities and mentors engineers to deliver search products at scale.

Accountabilities

• Lead the efforts to evolve the architecture of the Enterprise Search solution and the roadmap to implement it.
• Understand and describe the whole arc of the user experience for each Enterprise Search solution use case, and develop features that fit into that arc.
• Collaborate with cloud, stack, and other solutions leads to align priorities and roadmaps, and make appropriate technology choices and compromises.
• Lead technical discussions and requirements analysis with partners and customers to drive alignment with customer needs.
• Review and approve implementation designs for Enterprise Search.
• Communicate and evangelise the Enterprise Search roadmap internally and with the community.
• Represent the organisation at conferences and networking events.

Technical Qualifications

• Proven experience providing pragmatic technical leadership for a large group of engineers on complex and large-scale projects.
• Extensive experience in a technical leadership role with at least one pillar of enterprise search: application search, website search, organisational search, or e-commerce search.
• Experience using or managing the Elastic Stack.
• Experience developing search products at scale.
• Experience running or significantly contributing to an open-source project.
• Strong technical understanding of Ruby on Rails or Java and JVM.
• Ability to reason about complex software architectures, understanding trade-offs and the dynamics between components across the full stack.
• Ability to code when needed, review pull requests, and stay close to the team's work.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, debugging, and troubleshooting skills.

Robust data architecture for the world's largest Gigafactories depends on the Chief Architect, who designs and leads an event streaming platform using Apache Kafka, Flink, Spark, and SQL to accommodate shopfloor data architectures serving over 1,000 client devices. Based within a team of 15, including senior system architects and international development teams, the role defines the software roadmap, aligns with the Battery Accelerator product organisation, and delivers the next level of infrastructure supporting business logic for internal start-ups and external customers.

Role Responsibilities

• Design an event streaming platform using state-of-the-art technologies including Apache Kafka, Flink, Spark, SQL, and distributed messaging systems to accommodate shopfloor data architectures with over 1,000 client devices.
• Lead a team of 15 people including senior system architects and international development teams for the design, development, testing, and operation of the architecture.
• Guide the survey of open-source methods and coach and train the internal software team.
• Define a software roadmap to support the short- and long-term implementation of business logic authored by internal start-ups.
• Align with the chief product owner in the Battery Accelerator on interfaces with the broader product organisation.

Background & Experience

• Excellent university degree or equivalent in information technology or a related field.
• 10 years of professional experience in software development for large-scale distributed systems, including building and maintaining clusters with at least 100 working nodes.
• Minimum 5 years of leadership experience with technical development teams.
• Deep practical experience with microservice architectures and distributed computing using K8s and Docker.
• Deep practical experience with data processing using Apache Kafka, Flink, Spark, and SQL, and API design.
• Proficiency in C, C++, Java, and Go, with familiarity with Linux as a development environment.
• Profound understanding of continuous software engineering practices and architectural design patterns around stream processing.
• Excellent problem-solving skills with the ability to communicate reasoning clearly.
• Fluency in English and German; additional languages are a plus.

As the Chief Architect, this role shapes a clear and coherent technical strategy, identifying and designing solutions to mitigate technical risks while ensuring architecture choices boost software delivery, quality, and developer productivity. The engineering organisation relies on this work to align priorities and roadmaps, scale software systems across microservices, cloud, mobile, and web technologies, and build a team of architects through hiring, managing, and mentoring.

What You'll Do

• Define a clear and coherent technical strategy to achieve the business goals.
• Identify, prioritise, and design solutions to mitigate technical risks and realise opportunities in software.
• Ensure that architecture choices boost software delivery and quality, accounting for developer experience and productivity.
• Collaborate with all product leadership to align priorities and roadmaps, making appropriate technology choices and compromises.
• Make critical decisions about which platform components to build and which third-party solutions to integrate.
• Hire and manage a team of talented software architects.
• Participate in engineering recruitment processes and employer branding activities.
• Lead by example by writing and reviewing code, writing RFCs, and continuously staying close to engineering work.

Position Requirements

• Previous experience in a technical leadership role in large or fast-growing companies, such as CTO, Chief Architect, or VP, Director, or Head of Engineering.
• Experience managing people, hiring, and mentoring engineers.
• Experience with microservices, cloud, mobile, and web technologies.
• Strong understanding and experience in designing software systems for large-scale projects.
• Familiarity with NodeJS and the React stack preferred.
• Ability to apply principles, patterns, and best practices to make software scalable, resilient, and secure.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the capacity to reason about complex architectures end-to-end, including trade-offs and the dynamics of technology choices.
• Ability to work at a high level with business stakeholders and also dive deep into technical details to guide engineers.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to write documents that materialise complex ideas in a clear and actionable manner.

Chief Architect leads a focused team of architecture leaders, defining and managing a two-year technical product strategy in collaboration with the CTO and TIO on a three-to-five-year technical vision. Success in the position means maintaining evergreen reference architectures, driving architectural governance, and ensuring tight alignment of future technical directions with product management and engineering executive leadership across distributed complex software systems on Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, and VMware.

Leadership Responsibilities

• Inspire and motivate technical engineering teams to execute against the defined technical vision.
• Directly lead, mentor, and grow a focused team of architecture leaders.
• Define and manage a two-year technical product strategy, and collaborate with the CTO and TIO on a three-to-five-year technical vision.
• Set and communicate a clear definition of invest, maintain, and deprecate technical areas.
• Manage, share, and enhance standardised reference architectures, standards architecture diagrams, and modern tooling to keep them evergreen.
• Lead overall architectural governance capability, progressively managing risk while measuring broad impact and benefits.
• Ensure tight alignment of future technical directions with product management and engineering executive leadership.
• Define, communicate, and maintain appropriate technical standards and policies across engineering.
• Speak at conferences, sales events, and customer briefings.

Qualifications & Experience

• University degree required.
• Minimum 15 years of related technical and leadership experience.
• Experience in designing, building, and operating distributed complex software systems on Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, and VMware.
• Experience architecting for mission-critical 24x7 services.
• Experience with DevOps processes including CI/CD, monitoring, provisioning, deployment, and operations.
• Experience with Teradata or other RDBMS and NoSQL technologies, including advanced workload management preferred.
• Holistic expertise in computer science fundamentals including system design, data structures, and algorithm design.
• Broad experience across languages including C, C++, Go, and Python, and across full-stack development.
• Specific architectural understanding of public cloud networking, object and block services, serverless, containerisation, security and compliance, and abstraction layers.

The Chief Architect develops the enterprise digital transformation roadmap and defines the future-state technology stack, enabling rapid application deployment and embedding AI, ML, and cognitive capabilities into current systems across WPB LATAM. Reporting to the Vice President and working closely with the CIO, VP of Engineering, business partners, and enterprise architects, the role advances capability investment priorities, data standards, and technology standards to drive growth through digital technologies.

Strategic Responsibilities

• Define the future state technology stack supporting modern components that enable rapid application deployment.
• Define a vision traversing the technology stack from user experience and customer experience, data-driven strategic analysis and customer insights, cloud provisioning, and embedding AI and ML and cognitive capabilities into current systems.
• Assess and evaluate emerging technology capabilities including IoT, robotics, VR and AR, and blockchain for compatibility, scalability, and viability.
• Define the enterprise digital transformation roadmap and phased approach for execution to transform the ability to deliver growth capabilities through digital technologies.
• Research and evaluate new and alternative solutions and technologies to enhance operational effectiveness, reduce costs, mitigate system risks, and increase speed to market, including overseeing proofs-of-concept and proof-of-technologies.
• Define the future state reference architecture for applications, data, and infrastructure, and drive standardisation to leverage enterprise scale with the goal of reducing time to market and lowering total cost of ownership.

Knowledge Skills & Abilities

• 15 or more years of proven and progressive experience in IT.
• 8 or more years of experience in technology development, architecture, integration, and management.
• 5 or more years of prior hands-on coding experience as a full-stack engineer.
• Experience creating strategies for digital solution maximisation across diverse business areas, including implementation of digital strategies, processes, and techniques.
• Knowledge of the system development life cycle and system and application program development technological alternatives and architecture methodologies for multi-platform environments.
• Knowledge of systems architectural concepts and frameworks.
• Knowledge of contemporary technology and business trends enabling creative and cost-effective problem solving.
• Track record of architecting and co-leading digital transformation with expertise in digital decoupling architecture.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Consulting skills including change management concepts and strategies such as communication, culture change, and performance measurement.

Embedded within the Merit platform organisation, the Chief Architect produces an end-to-end architecture across product offerings and platform services, encompassing mobile, web, REST, database, and infrastructure domains. Working closely with multiple engineering teams, the role ensures the platform is highly secure, available, scalable, and resilient while maintaining compliance with regulations including EU GDPR, SOC, HIPAA, and PCI, and delivers an architectural roadmap aligned to business needs.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• Drive end-to-end architecture across product offerings and platform services.
• Work across multiple engineering teams to drive short- and long-term architecture decisions.
• Provide strong technical leadership across mobile, web, REST, database, and infrastructure domains.
• Ensure the platform is highly secure, available, scalable, and resilient.
• Provide strategic and tactical direction in the areas of data science, machine learning, and analytics.
• Participate actively in technical designs and pull request reviews.
• Recognise trouble spots, suggest alternatives, and seek help effectively.
• Implement solid prototypes and core components rapidly.
• Define initiatives to improve infrastructure, reduce technical debt, and decrease system complexity.
• Seek out the latest developments in technology and open-source frameworks and implement proofs-of-concept to ease adoption among engineers.
• Motivate and mentor the engineering team using technical leadership and deep knowledge to inspire and influence engineering culture.
• Develop and maintain an architectural roadmap and ensure alignment between business needs and architecture standards.
• Ensure that the platform helps partners comply with regulations including EU GDPR, SOC, HIPAA, and PCI.

Professional Experience

• Degree in computer science or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• 15 or more years of experience in the software product industry in senior architecture and software development roles.
• Experience in senior leadership positions with responsibility for architecture and technology.
• Experience in architecting highly distributed, scalable, low-latency systems using open-source technologies such as Tomcat, ZooKeeper, Kafka, Netty, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL.
• In-depth understanding of industry-leading technology in big data, data management, query processing, and machine learning.
• Expertise in big data technologies including Hadoop, MapReduce, Hive, HDFS, Kafka, Pig, HBase, and Spark.
• High proficiency in mobile, web, REST APIs, NoSQL, and RDBMS architecture and design.
• Knowledge of containers, container orchestration, and cloud-native distributed systems.
• Expertise in performance tuning, monitoring, and measuring.
• Thorough understanding of continuous integration, continuous deployment, test automation, and build automation.
• Balance of technical leadership and acumen with strong business judgment to make sound technology decisions.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to identify and solve complex problems with simple solutions.

Reporting to programme leadership, the Chief Architect develops the technical roadmap based on customer mission priorities and serves as the direct customer interface for all technical topics related to the Ajax infrastructure transition from on-premise custom-built cloud to a commercial managed service model. Partnering with technical teams, stakeholders, and vendors, the role leads cloud migration and deployment projects, delivering engineering designs and solutions that support a full lifecycle ItaaS service delivery transformation.

Scope of Work

• Develop a technical roadmap based on customer mission priorities.
• Serve as the direct customer interface for all technical topics related to the programme.
• Develop relationships between the technical team, stakeholders, and vendors.
• Oversee the development of robust configuration management and knowledge management plans and their implementation.
• Oversee the development of a comprehensive quality assurance plan and its implementation.
• Support the full lifecycle of cloud computing management, from needs analysis and environment assessment through design, test, migration, and operation.
• Provide recommendations and develop engineering designs and project plans for cloud migration, cloud operation, and cloud IT optimisation.
• Lead proof-of-concept development and pilot technical solutions.
• Lead cloud migration and deployment projects and provide technical expertise in resolving challenging technical problems.
• Provide troubleshooting on complex technical problems including root cause analysis.
• Continually research, evaluate, and apply emerging technologies to improve performance in the cloud environment.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree and 12 or more years of prior relevant experience, or additional experience instead of degree.
• ITIL Foundations Certification.
• Experience working directly with development and operations teams.
• Experience interacting with clients at a senior executive level.
• Experience leading the development of solutions for proposals.
• Experience with Azure, AWS, or VMware cloud management and automation.
• Experience delivering services in a production environment, following ITIL preferred.
• Track record of successfully leading and driving product development, architecture, and infrastructure activities.
• Track record of success with agile development methodology.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent organisational, interpersonal, and project management skills.
• Strong analytical skills with good attention to detail.

Sitting at the intersection of enterprise architecture and telecommunications strategy, the Chief Architect at Vodafone develops target architecture and roadmaps aligned with group strategy, overseeing architecture governance and providing consultancy services to business analysts, project managers, and delivery managers across demand and delivery phases. Operating across vendor selection, infrastructure design, and domain evolution planning, the role enables long-term architectural fit by reviewing non-functional requirements and leading the entire architecture team.

Operational Focus

• Develop target architecture and roadmaps aligned with group strategy.
• Develop detailed guidelines for implementation by vendors and local teams during project delivery.
• Understand strategic priorities and demand pipeline of business stakeholders and provide the best architectural solution for their requirements.
• Provide architectural consultancy services to business analysts, project managers, and delivery managers in demand and delivery phases.
• Review non-functional requirements including infrastructure, IP networking, performance, availability, and security, and evaluate solution designs.
• Ensure fulfilment of architecture requirements in project delivery phases.
• Maintain domain knowledge and define domain evolution and maintenance plans to ensure long-term architectural fit.
• Identify and propose relevant architectures and platforms, including product selection and technology recommendations.
• Operate and develop the architecture governance process to enable architectural alignment with infrastructure expertise.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer, industrial, or electrical and electronics engineering.
• At least 10 years of working experience.
• At least 5 years of management experience in architectural roles.
• Wide span of architectural knowledge across multiple domains.
• Outstanding analytical skills.
• Strong oral and written English communication skills.
• High motivation and autonomy in delivery with a focus on timely results.

A key member of the consulting and presales leadership team, the Chief Architect leads billable inception phases for transformations and upgrades, formulating and winning proposals and RFP responses while building and maintaining relationships with C-level executives in the property and casualty insurance industry. Collaborating across client services, account management, and subject matter expert communities, the role delivers process reengineering, roadmaps, and guidance that advance client outcomes through deep functional and technical expertise in Guidewire products.

Key Deliverables

• Interact with and lead team members in complex discussions around product capabilities.
• Work closely with client services and account management teams to promote practice capabilities.
• Serve as the subject matter expert leader for formulating and winning proposals and RFP responses, including overall strategy, calendar, timeline, and approvals.
• Build and maintain relationships and present to C-level executives in the property and casualty insurance industry.
• Lead billable inception phases for assigned transformations and upgrades.
• Drive programme processes and solve issues as they arise.
• Analyse process flows and drive them to Level 2 and Level 3 detail.
• Apply working knowledge of data, organisational change management, process reengineering, and quality assurance.
• Perform ad hoc consulting requests with subject matter expertise.
• Understand and empathise with customer challenges and provide guidance, roadmaps, and alternative options.
• Provide clear and concise status reporting to client and internal stakeholders.

Minimum Qualifications

• 15 or more years of working experience in property and casualty insurance.
• 10 or more years of functional experience.
• Technical experience with Guidewire products including PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, or ClaimCenter.
• Track record in consultative selling in technology presales or direct sales.
• Experience working with Guidewire implementation methodologies and Scaled Agile Framework.
• Experience working with global organisations with onshore and offshore service delivery teams.
• Intermediate or above proficiency in Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.

Strategic technology investment at the enterprise level depends on the Chief Architect, who directs the design, acquisition, management, and implementation of an enterprise-wide technology infrastructure while maintaining standards and compliance across all systems. Based within the executive leadership team, the role finds innovative technical solutions to existing and future business problems, integrating new technologies and trends into development thinking to keep the organisation competitive.

Areas of Ownership

• Direct the strategic design, acquisition, management, and implementation of an enterprise-wide technology infrastructure.
• Maintain technology standards and direct all activities necessary to keep the technology infrastructure running efficiently and effectively while ensuring compliance with established standards and policies.
• Lead and direct the work of others, motivating by thought and action.
• Find innovative technical solutions to existing and future business problems.
• Integrate new and future technologies and trends into development thinking, constantly challenging the norm.
• Participate and contribute as a member of the leadership team.

Skills & Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a related area.
• Experience in cybersecurity issues.
• Experience in strategic technology planning, execution, and policy development.
• Experience building software products.
• Knowledge of technology environments including networks and programming.
• Solid understanding of computer systems characteristics, features, and integration capabilities.
• Extensive knowledge of data processing, hardware platforms, enterprise software applications, and outsourced systems.
• Excellent understanding of information security and project management principles.
• In-depth knowledge of applicable laws and regulations as they relate to technology issues.
• Excellent commercial experience encompassing general management and budget management.
• Track record of success in planning, organisation, and development.
• Ability to apply technology solutions to business challenges.

As the Chief Architect for WPB LATAM, this role leads and owns the development and implementation of architecture strategy and standards pertinent to the region, serving as the recognised technical expert and accountable design authority for technology decisions across the regional portfolio. The Enterprise Architecture and Design Practice within the region relies on this work to introduce new practices, align with global applications, and ensure solutions adhere to principles and direction set across infrastructure, data, and security design.

Executive Functions

• Lead and own the development and implementation of architecture strategy and standards pertinent to the region.
• Introduce new practices, processes, operating models, techniques, products, services, technologies, and standards against identified use cases via the appropriate governance bodies.
• Act as the recognised technical expert for the relevant regional domain and systems.
• Serve as the accountable design authority for technology decisions and lead the appropriate governance bodies.
• Review services provided against regional strategy and benchmark internally and externally as appropriate.
• Stay abreast of technology trends and advise technology and business teams about potential benefits and impacts.

Technical Qualifications

• AWS Architecture Certifications preferred.
• Experience in delivering solutions over several years in roles other than architecture.
• Experience in technical and business stakeholder management from developers to executive management.
• Good understanding of business functional domains including operations and frontline activities.
• Awareness of infrastructure design concepts and integration concepts, techniques, and patterns.
• Knowledge of data modelling and data architecture concepts, APIs, messaging infrastructure and standards, and security concepts and design.
• Ability to influence and champion new ideas and technical direction within the organisation.
• Ability to collaborate with the business and engineers to ensure solutions adhere to principles and direction set.
• Ability to break down non-functional requirements into infrastructure and security designs.
• Ability to justify significant architectural decisions.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to adapt verbal and written communications to the appropriate audience.

Chief Architect oversees the development and deployment of IPFS and Filecoin technology, products, and new technologies within the ecosystem, including leading acquisitions, technology integrations, and technical business plans. Success in the position means communicating technology strategy to partners, management, investors, and employees while monitoring social and technology trends, managing staffing decisions, and driving market penetration for the organisation.

Ownership Areas

• Develop economic strategies within an ever-changing global economy.
• Help steer the organisation towards improved market penetration and assist in the adoption of new tools.
• Monitor social and technology trends and get ahead of the market while advancing IPFS and Filecoin.
• Identify opportunities and risks for the organisation.
• Participate in management and staffing decisions.
• Monitor budget and forecast costs.
• Support technical recruitment, retention, acquisition, and capital allocation efforts.
• Communicate technology strategy to partners, management, investors, and employees.
• Research, outline, and direct the most effective solutions for the technology.
• Architect new technologies for portfolio companies.
• Lead acquisitions and technology integrations, including due diligence, evaluation, and reporting.

Experience & Qualifications

• Experience with at least three companies in technical decision-making roles with impact on markets, technical personnel, and technology stakeholders.
• Extensive experience evaluating large technical solutions and achieving significant successes in their deployment.
• Experience with high-stakes technology reflecting an understanding of complex operational challenges.
• Track record of strong decision-making and high productivity in technical leadership roles.
• Ability to communicate at C-level.
• Large network and engineering toolkit for solving large-scale problems in this domain.
• Comfort and expertise in due diligence, audits, and technical evaluations.
• Willingness to invent and solve problems that have not been solved before.

The Chief Architect creates the data architecture patterns, tools, and practices leveraged by delivery teams while leading a large team of architects, developers, and analysts to build modern data platforms on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Reporting to C-level stakeholders and collaborating with the project architect team, the role translates complex business needs into cohesive data architecture roadmaps that encompass data mesh, data lakes, data warehouses, and domain-driven design across both on-premises and cloud environments.

Job Functions

• Lead the architecture team in the definition, planning, and implementation of the project's technical and data architecture.
• Collaborate with the project architect team to translate needs into a cohesive data architecture and roadmap.
• Provide support and mentorship for technical staff and clients to build a collaborative and effective work culture.
• Drive the development of data architecture patterns, tools, and practices that can be leveraged by delivery teams.
• Keep abreast of and promote the adoption of new technologies and approaches appropriate for the project.
• Liaise with C-level stakeholders to understand and influence design decisions while interpreting business needs and designing appropriate applications with the architecture team.
• Deliver proofs-of-concept to provide feasibility studies into new technologies and approaches and to gain user feedback on project components.
• Design, analyse, map, and model data flow between the project platform layers and components.

Qualifications & Experience

• 8 or more years of relevant industry experience.
• Experience designing data architecture, advanced analytics frameworks, and solutions for broad and complex systems.
• Experience working with DevOps practices, Git version control, and agile approaches.
• Experience designing for both on-premises and major cloud platforms including Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.
• Experience leading large teams of architects, developers, and analysts to build modern data platforms.
• Deep understanding of domain-driven design, container-based architecture, microservices, and distributed architecture.
• Deep understanding and experience with modern data architecture approaches including data mesh, data lakes, data warehouses, data integration, and data consumption.
• Understanding of information security and privacy concepts including public key infrastructure, certificate-based authentication, network security, social engineering, and multifactor authentication.
• Ability to work with data analytics frameworks, products, and services including Microsoft Azure, Snowflake, Azure Data Factory, and Power BI.
• Experience developing strong metamodels and automating enterprise architecture processes preferred.
• Experience using the Collective Code Construction Contract approach preferred.

Embedded within the engineering organisation, the Chief Architect executes the technical architecture and quality roadmap for a hardware, software, and analytics platform, maximising network resiliency while minimising latency and costs across cloud and embedded software teams. Working closely with product management, the role defines contracts and interfaces between services to enable scale, resiliency, and feature velocity, ensuring executive stakeholders understand opportunities and risks across the cloud and edge infrastructure.

Work Activities

• Define and implement standards for systems design, development, comprehensive testing, and quality assurance practices.
• Identify reliability and performance vulnerabilities in the distributed system.
• Formulate scalable solutions for these weaknesses in a cohesive and consistent manner, addressing root causes and enabling broader platform flexibility.
• Work closely with product management to understand business requirements and specifications to establish the technology-centric roadmap and architecture.
• Lead the effort to define contracts and interfaces between services to enable scale, resiliency, and feature velocity based on partnership with product management.
• Articulate the technology roadmap and standards to engineering stakeholders to ensure specifications are understood, captured, and capable of being executed.
• Solve tangible engineering problems at a rapid pace in an innovative environment, always ensuring data quality and availability.
• Ensure executive stakeholders understand opportunities and risks across the cloud and edge infrastructure.
• Manage expectations and provide reasonable timelines in a complex and multi-faceted environment.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in an engineering field; master's preferred.
• 10 to 15 years of experience in designing large-scale enterprise systems.
• 2 to 5 years of experience within IoT or similar high-volume applications such as quantitative finance.
• 5 to 7 years of experience with AWS including ECS, Fargate, S3, SQS, Lambda, and API Gateway.
• 2 to 5 years of experience with time series database technologies, preferably a NoSQL-based solution.
• Experience with containerisation in a public cloud environment.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers with the ability to define, educate, and enforce architectural standards.
• Awareness of embedded systems engineering and software development.
• Excellent knowledge of web applications, message-oriented middleware, microservices, and REST APIs.
• Track record of running applications and architectures that are mission-critical 24/7.

Reporting to engineering leadership, the Chief Architect guides and mentors teams on cloud-native technologies, microservice composition, and DevSecOps practices while coordinating a complex application migration to the cloud that delivers incremental value across multiple technology stacks. Partnering with architects, domain experts, governance, and product management, the role coordinates the creation of reference architectures and proofs-of-concept to continuously improve the software development methodology and reduce cost of ownership.

Performance Expectations

• Design and guide teams through a technical roadmap of industry-leading solutions to cloud-native on multiple technology stacks.
• Guide and mentor teams on cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes and service mesh.
• Guide and mentor teams on microservice composition and technologies such as Spring Boot, Node.js, document stores, and high-performance messaging systems.
• Drive best practices in quality, automation, CI/CD, and AIOps with a strong focus on security practices in DevSecOps.
• Roadmap a complex application migration to the cloud while delivering incremental value.
• Work with architects and domain experts to transform emerging technologies and business requirements into implementable software designs and patterns.
• Research, evaluate, and recommend technology solutions based on the latest technology trends, application capabilities, and best practices.
• Drive the creation of reference architectures and proofs-of-concept in conjunction with governance, development teams, and product management to continuously improve the software development methodology and processes.
• Arrive at cost-conscious solutions and drive opportunities to reuse, optimise, and reduce cost of ownership, while suggesting and designing acceleration tools and techniques to improve the overall software engineering process.
• Provide technical leadership for developing, maintaining, and communicating technology strategy across domains.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 15 years of progressive experience in a corporate software development environment.
• Minimum 5 years of experience as a technical leader defining and communicating technical roadmaps as a senior or chief architect.
• 10 years of experience in building, integrating, and delivering large multi-tenant, cloud-based, enterprise-scale solutions using web-based technologies.
• 10 years of experience designing applications as an architect.
• 15 years of experience delivering solutions in an agile environment.
• 5 years of DevOps and CI/CD experience.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to tailor communication to the intended audience.

Sitting at the intersection of security engineering and platform architecture, the Chief Architect provides technical leadership for the security team, guiding use of the Elastic Stack's strengths while influencing its evolution to better meet the needs of the security solution. Operating across internal teams and customer-facing engagements, the role drives technical decisions on the security solution, leads by example through coding proofs-of-concept and benchmarks, and communicates the power of the Elastic Stack to customers and at industry events.

Core Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership for the security team, working collaboratively with other architects and engineers.
• Learn the strengths and weaknesses of the Elastic stack and guide the security teams to use its strengths and avoid its pitfalls.
• Influence the evolution of the Elastic stack to better meet the needs of security.
• Communicate the power of the Elastic stack to customers and at industry events and solicit feedback towards continued improvement of the solution and platform.
• Act as the contact point for other teams for anything related to the technology and architecture of the security solution.
• Drive decisions on technical topics both within the team and across teams.
• Ask questions and challenge the teams towards simplification and well-designed architecture.
• Focus teams on achieving measurable outcomes.
• Lead by example by coding proofs-of-concept, doing benchmarks, and providing thoughtful reviews.

Skills & Qualifications

• Significant experience providing technical leadership for a team of senior engineers and architects.
• Significant experience in an ownership role for technical direction and strategy.
• Significant experience communicating technical concepts to customers and at industry events, tailoring the message to the audience.
• Experience developing and reviewing complex technical requirements and translating them into actionable tasks for engineers.
• Technical expertise in cloud and data technologies.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to drive conversations across multiple teams to a conclusion.

A key member of the account leadership team, the Chief Architect represents the organisation to designated client accounts as their trusted technical advisor, providing functional leadership to the team of architects working on those accounts. Collaborating across client governance forums, sales teams, and the account's technical leadership, the role guides the creation of the technology plan, identifies and drives sales opportunities, and provides technical and career mentoring for architects working on the account.

Key Responsibilities

• Represent the organisation to designated client accounts as their trusted technical advisor.
• Provide functional leadership to the team of architects working on the designated client accounts.
• Provide architectural governance functions including chairing governance forums such as a Design Authority or Architectural Review Board.
• Represent the organisation within the client's technical governance forums.
• Help ensure that client and account policies are being followed and implemented.
• Maintain a view of new and incremental business requiring technology support on the account.
• Review and understand client strategic plans and documents.
• Own the creation of the technology plan for the account.
• Identify and drive sales opportunities with the sales team.
• Provide technical and career mentoring for architects working on the account.
• Participate in the creation, client approval, and execution of the Client Delivery Plan.
• Assume leadership responsibilities commensurate with the rest of the senior account team.

Professional Experience

• Knowledge of cloud technologies and enterprise architecture.
• Knowledge of systems engineering process methodology.
• Knowledge of IT service management processes including ITIL.
• Knowledge of standard architectural frameworks.
• Ability to set technical direction and lead the strategy, design, and implementation of solutions.

Sustained competitive positioning in core network products depends on the Chief Architect, who sets up the Technology Radar process to assimilate key customer demands and technology trends from varied internal and external stakeholders, then collaborates with core technology office teams and product managers to produce the core technology roadmap. Serving as the bridge between research and development teams and external technology partners, the role strengthens customer collaborations and motivates teams to embrace selected technologies for short- and long-term strategic impact.

Strategic Initiatives

• Set up a Technology Radar process to assimilate key customer demands and technology trends from varied internal and external stakeholders.
• Use Technology Radar inputs and collaborate with core technology office teams and product managers to arrive at the core technology roadmap.
• Decide on critical technology selections for core network products in conjunction with the CTO organisation.
• Collaborate with research and development teams and external technology partners to scout for new technology avenues.
• Motivate research and development teams to embrace selected technologies and challenge or assist them as the situation demands.
• Strengthen customer collaborations with key customers.

Background & Experience

• Bachelor's or master's degree or PhD in a relevant field.
• Experience assimilating key customer demands and industry trends and converting them into an executable technology roadmap.
• Experience working in worldwide virtual teams.
• Fast analytical and abstraction capabilities with a results-oriented mindset.
• Exceptional work ethic with the ability to work and discover independently.
• Fluency in English required.