Principal Enterprise Architect

The Principal Enterprise Architect is a senior architecture leader responsible for shaping, guiding, and advancing enterprise architecture across the organization. Reporting to the Head of Enterprise Architecture and Engineering Enablement, this role translates enterprise strategy into practical architecture direction, standards, target-state designs, and transition roadmaps across business capabilities, applications, platforms, data, integration, cloud, security, and emerging technology domains. While architecture is foundational, the Principal Enterprise Architect will be responsible for designing enterprise solutions in close collaboration with the business and technology stakeholders. Where applicable the role will be accountable to build solutions that scale for the enterprise.

This position plays a critical role in connecting enterprise strategy to federated execution. The Principal Enterprise Architect partners with architecture, engineering, platform, security, data, and business technology leaders to ensure material technology decisions align with enterprise standards, target-state architecture, modernization priorities, and governance requirements.

The role requires strong strategic thinking, architecture breadth, executive communication, and the ability to influence across a large, complex, and federated enterprise environment.

The Principal Enterprise Architect provides architecture leadership and recommendations on material technology decisions and has delegated authority within the enterprise architecture operating model as assigned by the Head of Enterprise Architecture. The role is expected to escalate decisions with enterprise-wide impact, non-standard exceptions, or significant risk implications.

Key Responsibilities:

Enterprise Architecture Leadership

• Support the Head of Enterprise Architecture in developing and evolving enterprise architecturestrategy, principles, standards, and target-state roadmaps.

• Define andmaintainarchitecture perspectives across business, application, data, integration, cloud, platform, security, and AI-related capabilities as applicable.

• Own enterprise standards, target state, governance, exceptions, material technology decision frameworks

• Translate enterprise strategy and target-state direction into practical guidance for domain architecture and engineering teams.

• Promote alignment across business units, shared services, and technology domains.

Strategic Architecture and Transformation

• Providearchitectureleadership for major strategic initiatives, modernization programs, and enterprise-impacting technology decisions.

• Assess architecture options and recommend solutions that balance business value, cost, risk, resilience, time to market, and long-term maintainability.

• Support enterprise transformation through simplification, rationalization, modernization, and platform reuse.

• Identifyopportunities to reduce duplication,retirelegacy complexity, and improve interoperability across the enterprise.

Governance and Decision Support

• Participate in and support enterprise architecture governance,standardscouncils, review boards, and strategic decision forums.

• Evaluate material technology decisions using approved enterprise frameworks, including buy, build, reuse, partner, and retire options.

• Review architecture proposals for compliance with enterprise standards, target-state architecture, and risk requirements.

• Support management of architecture exceptions, including rationale, risk analysis, remediation paths, and time-bound approvals.

• Available for production incidents with major impact to business operations

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with federated domain architects, platform leaders, engineering teams, data and AI teams, security, infrastructure, and business technology leaders to drive alignment.

• Facilitate resolution of cross-domain design issues, architecture conflicts, and overlapping capability decisions.

• Act as a trusted advisor to leaders across technology and business-aligned delivery organizations.

• Ensure architecture direction is understood and applied consistently across federated teams.

• Works with Business Unit heads and principal solution architects to translate enterprise direction into federated execution.

Risk, Security, and Resilience

• Incorporate cybersecurity, privacy, resilience, recoverability, and regulatory considerations into architecture guidance and recommendations.

• Partner with risk, security, and compliance stakeholders to ensure technology decisions align with enterprise control requirements.

• Assess the operational and architectural implications of technology choices in regulated and high-availability environments.

Talent and Capability Development

• Mentor and coach architects and senior technology professionals.

• Contribute to architecture capability development, communities of practice, and architecture operating model maturity.

• Support common role expectations, competency models, and quality standards across the architecture function.

• Promote enterprise-first thinking, sound decision-making, and strong architecture discipline.

You Have:

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.

• 12+ years of progressive experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, domain architecture, or senior technology strategy roles.

• Deep cross-domainexpertisespanning applications, integration, data, AI, cloud, security, and platform strategy.

• Experience supporting or leading architecture for large-scale transformation initiatives in complex enterprise environments.

• Experience with architecture governance, standards development, target-state planning, and strategic technology decision-making.

• Proven ability to influence across organizational boundaries without direct authority.

• Strong written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.

Preferred Education and Experience

• Experience in insurance, financial services, healthcare, oranotherhighly regulated industry.

• Experience in a federated technology organization with centralized architecture direction and distributed execution.

• Experience with cloud modernization, API strategies, platform engineering, data ecosystems, and enterprise integration.

• Familiarity with AI-enabled enterprise capabilities, automation, and emerging technology trends.

• Advanced degree and/or relevant certifications such as TOGAF,SAFe, AWS, Azure, GCP, or equivalent.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong knowledge of enterprise architecture principles, methods, and governance practices.

• Broad understanding of enterprise technology domains and cross-domain dependencies.

• Ability to develop target-state architecture and pragmatic transition approaches.

• Strong business acumen and ability to connect architecture decisions to business outcomes.

• Ability to assess tradeoffs among speed, cost, quality, risk, and strategic fit.

• Strong facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to communicate effectively with executive, business, and technical audiences.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

• Ability tooperateeffectively in ambiguity and lead through influence.

Salary Range:

$178,690.00 - $293,560.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

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Every day, Guardian helps our 29 million customers realize their dreams through a range of insurance and financial products and services. Our Purpose, to inspire well-being, guides our dedication to the colleagues, consumers, and communities we serve. We know that people count, and we go above and beyond to prepare them for the life they want to live, focusing on their overall well-being - mind, body, and wallet. As one of the largest mutual insurance companies, we put our customers first. Behind every bright future is a GuardianTM. Learn more about Guardian at guardianlife.com .

Visa Sponsorship:

Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.