Principal Enterprise Architect

Principal Enterprise ArchitectDepartment: Technology & Infrastructure - Location: Hybrid - Employment Type: Full-TimeWe are looking for a seasoned Enterprise Architect to lead the strategic design and evolution of our technology landscape. A primary focus of this role is to oversee and drive our cloud modernization initiative, migrating on-premises infrastructure and applications to AWS while ensuring architectural coherence, security, scalability, and alignment with long-term business objectives. This is a highly visible, cross-functional leadership role that bridges technology and business strategy.Key ResponsibilitiesDefine and own the end-to-end cloud migration roadmap, including phased lift-and-shift, re-platforming, and re-architecture plans.Conduct thorough assessment of existing on-premises systems, applications, and infrastructure to identify migration candidates and sequencing.Establish Landing Zone design on AWS using AWS Control Tower, Organizations, and Service Control Policies (SCPs).Drive decisions on migration patterns: rehost, replatform, refactor, retire, or retain with documented rationale for each workload.Coordinate with vendors and managed service providers to ensure smooth execution of migration programs.Develop and maintain enterprise architecture artifacts including reference architectures, architecture principles, and technology standards.Lead the Architecture Review Board (ARB), establishing governance processes for evaluating and approving new technologies and design patterns.Define integration patterns and API strategy across enterprise systems including ERP, CRM, HRIS, and data platforms.Ensure architecture decisions are documented using frameworks such as TOGAF, AWS Well-Architected Framework.Architect multi-account AWS environments with strong network segmentation, identity federation, and compliance controls.Design for high availability and disaster recovery across multiple AWS regions and availability zones.Define cloud networking strategy including VPCs, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect / VPN, and hybrid connectivity.Establish FinOps practices including cloud cost governance, tagging taxonomies, and budget alerting.Evaluate and recommend AWS-native and third-party services to meet evolving business requirements.Define the cloud security architecture including identity and access management (IAM), encryption, secrets management, and vulnerability management.Partner with the security team to ensure adherence to compliance standards such as SOC 2, HIPAA, or ISO 27001 as applicable.Lead threat modeling exercises and security design reviews for major architectural changes.Translate complex architectural concepts into clear business language for executive stakeholders.Mentor engineering teams on cloud-native design patterns, architectural best practices, and AWS service selection.Act as a key advisor for technology investment decisions and build-vs-buy evaluations.Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends, advising leadership on strategic opportunities.Required QualificationsTechnical Skills10+ years of experience in technology roles with 5+ years in an architecture capacity.Deep, hands-on expertise with AWS services spanning compute, networking, storage, security, and databases.Proven experience leading large-scale on-premises to cloud migration programs.Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tooling: Terraform, AWS CDK, CloudFormation.Experience designing microservices, event-driven architectures, and API-first integration patterns.Knowledge of containerization and orchestration: Docker, Amazon ECS, or Amazon EKS.Understanding of DevOps practices including CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, and platform engineering.Experience & EducationBachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Professional certification required; additional specialty certifications highly valued.Experience with enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or Zachman.Track record of delivering architecture in regulated or compliance-driven environments.Strong communication skills with experience presenting to C-suite and board-level stakeholders.We are not able to consider candidates who will require sponsorship at any point during employment.EEO/Vets/Women/Minorities/Disabled Bennett International Education Consultancy