Lead Software Architect

The Lead Software Architect is responsible for owning the architecture function within the Technology Division, setting the technical direction and defining the target architecture. This role establishes the technology radar and non-functional requirement envelopes—covering performance, cost, security, and reliability—that all systems must adhere to. While Software Architects focus on how code is written, the Lead Software Architect determines what gets built, how systems integrate, and which architectural decisions the division commits to. This position does not involve coding but oversees the quality of all architectural artifacts produced across domain teams, including system designs, integration contracts, data models, and migration plans. The Lead Software Architect chairs the Architecture Review Board, resolves cross-domain design disputes, makes build-versus-buy decisions, and serves as the escalation point for unresolved architectural questions.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture Strategy and Ownership
- Define and maintain the division’s target architecture and the roadmap to achieve it.
- Manage the technology radar, deciding which languages, frameworks, datastores, and platforms to adopt, trial, assess, or hold.
- Establish and enforce non-functional requirement envelopes such as latency, throughput, availability, unit cost, and data residency at design time.
- Own decisions regarding build-versus-buy-versus-agent for platform-level capabilities.
- Maintain the Architecture Decision Record (ADR) corpus as the division’s authoritative source on architectural rationale.

Cross-Domain System Design
- Oversee the system-of-systems perspective, including service boundaries, integration contracts, event flows, and shared data models across domain teams.
- Arbitrate design disputes and boundary ownership issues that span multiple domains.
- Review and approve designs involving cross-domain interactions, shared infrastructure, or new external dependencies.
- Lead architecture-level migration and decommissioning plans for legacy systems.

Architect Agent Ownership
- Own and continuously improve the Architect agent’s capabilities to ensure design outputs align with target architecture and non-functional requirements.
- Encode architectural guardrails, decision heuristics, and rejection criteria into the agent to catch non-compliant designs before human review.
- Conduct structured audits of agent outputs and incorporate findings into agent skill development.
- Define standards for Software Architects’ use of their agents and review their agent skill definitions.

Leading the Architecture Function
- Line-manage, coach, and develop the Software Architects team.
- Chair the Architecture Review Board, setting its schedule, entry criteria, and decision-making authority.
- Ensure coding standards remain consistent with the target architecture.
- Own architecture onboarding, leveling, and talent development within the function.

Risk, Debt, and Governance
- Manage the division’s technical debt register by quantifying, prioritizing, and negotiating debt paydown within the roadmap.
- Collaborate with Information Security and GRC leads on security-by-design and threat modeling at the architecture level.
- Partner with Infrastructure and Platform leads on capacity, cost, and reliability architecture.
- Work with QA leadership to embed testability as an architectural property.
- Report on architecture health, risks, and debt status to senior leadership.

Required Qualifications
- Minimum of 18 years of experience in software architecture and design.
- Expertise in software architecture, design patterns, and SaaS application design.
- Deep knowledge of API and integration contract design (REST, GraphQL, gRPC, event-driven) and data architecture/modeling.
- Strong skills in non-functional requirements engineering, including performance, reliability, and cost management.
- Advanced experience in cloud, platform, and security architecture, including threat modeling; AWS expertise required, OCI experience is a strong advantage.
- Proven expertise in architecting agent configuration and training, with advanced skills in agent design, guardrail engineering, and prompt engineering for system design.
- Demonstrated ability in technical decision-making and arbitration, leading senior technical professionals, and negotiating roadmaps with stakeholders.
- Mastery of architecture documentation and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), with strong executive communication skills around technical risk.

This role offers the opportunity to lead architectural strategy at a division-wide level, influence critical technical decisions, and shape the future of technology platforms in a complex, multi-domain environment.