Principal Chief Architect

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The Principal Chief Architect is a dual-mandate leadership role that unifies product strategy and solution architecture across CenterWell's four core business segments: Pharmacy, Primary Care Organization (PCO), Home Solutions, and Humana Military. This senior individual contributor serves as the connective tissue between business vision and technical execution—owning cross-segment product roadmaps while simultaneously authoring and governing the architectural blueprints that underpin them.

You will operate within CenterWell IT – Cross-CenterWell Architecture, partnering with segment product leaders, engineering teams, EA Activation, security, data, and compliance to deliver integrated, interoperable health solutions that serve members, providers, and partners across the full care continuum. Your decisions shape what gets built, how it gets built, and the standard by which all four segments measure delivery readiness.

DAY-TO-DAY

Key Activities

• Define and own a unified cross-segment product roadmap that balances segment-specific priorities against shared platform investments, and communicates trade-offs clearly to leadership.

• Establish and maintain reference architectures, design patterns, and integration standards applicable across all four CenterWell segments.

• Conduct cross-segment discovery sessions, design workshops, and architecture reviews to surface shared needs, resolve competing priorities, and prevent duplicative build.

• Own and prioritize top-level product backlogs for shared platforms, partnering with segment product owners to decompose initiatives into delivery-ready user stories with clear acceptance criteria and non-functional requirements (NFRs).

• Define integration contracts, API standards, and domain boundaries for cross-segment data flows spanning pharmacy, clinical, home health, and military health domains.

• Lead architecture checkpoints and risk reviews for cross-segment initiatives; represent the combined product and architecture perspective in governance forums (ARB, TRB, MOR).

• Translate product vision into architectural runways and delivery-ready specifications that engineering teams across segments can act on immediately.

• Identify and steward opportunities for component and pattern reuse across segments; build the case for platform consolidation where segment convergence creates lasting efficiency.

• Serve as the primary liaison between segment business leaders, engineering leads, EA Activation, security, and the enterprise CIO organization.

Use your skills to make an impact

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field.

• 10+ years of progressive IT experience spanning product management, solution architecture, or a meaningful combination of both disciplines.

• 5+ years of solution architecture or senior product ownership experience within healthcare IT; demonstrated delivery in regulated environments (HIPAA/PHI, HITECH); experience across payer, provider, pharmacy, or government health domains preferred.

• Proven track record owning and prioritizing cross-functional product backlogs and roadmaps across multiple business lines or segments simultaneously, including managing competing stakeholder demands at the executive level.

• Hands‑on architecture experience with Azure services (Azure API Management, Event Hub, Service Bus, Azure Data Factory, AKS, Azure AD/Entra ID); working knowledge of Snowflake or Databricks data platform patterns.

• Deep competency in API design and governance, event‑driven architecture, and microservices patterns; experience with FHIR R4 and HL7 interoperability standards in healthcare contexts.

• Demonstrated ability to produce reference architectures, architectural decision records (ADRs), and solution blueprints consumed by multiple engineering delivery teams.

• Experience participating in and translating output from enterprise governance forums (ARB, TRB, MOR or equivalent) into actionable product and architecture direction.

• Proficiency in agile and SAFe delivery models: backlog management, PI planning, iteration ceremonies, and dependency management across agile release trains.

• Executive‑level communication skills; able to synthesize complex architectural and product trade‑offs into clear, concise recommendations for senior and C‑suite audiences.

GENERATIVE & AGENTIC AI

• Demonstrated experience incorporating AI/ML capabilities into product strategy and architectural design, including Generative AI use cases such as clinical document NLP, prior authorization automation, member‑facing conversational AI, or care gap identification.

• Working knowledge of LLM integration patterns including RAG, prompt engineering, knowledge management, and fine‑tuning; ability to evaluate platform options (Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, Vertex AI) and make informed build/buy/integrate recommendations.

• Depth in agent orchestration: planning loops, tool/function calling, multi‑agent coordination, and human‑in‑the‑loop override workflows—especially for clinically sensitive or compliance‑gated outputs.

• Familiarity with MLOps/LLMOps practices: model lifecycle governance, observability, evaluation frameworks, and cost/performance optimization at enterprise scale.

• Understanding of enterprise AI guardrails including responsible AI principles, bias mitigation, policy enforcement, and regulatory considerations specific to healthcare (FDA SaMD guidance, ONC AI framework).

WHAT YOU OWN

Core Responsibilities

Cross-Segment Product Strategy

Own and continuously evolve a shared platform product roadmap spanning Pharmacy, PCO, Home Solutions, and Humana Military. Balance segment‑specific priorities against enterprise platform investments; facilitate structured prioritization across competing segment demands, and communicate decisions and rationale clearly to executives and delivery teams alike.

Solution Architecture Authority

Serve as the architectural decision‑maker for cross‑segment initiatives. Produce and maintain reference architectures, integration patterns, and design standards that guide delivery teams across all four segments. Author architectural decision records (ADRs) that capture context, alternatives considered, and governing rationale for reuse by future teams.

Backlog & Delivery Enablement

Own top‑level product backlog items for shared platforms and cross‑segment capabilities. Partner with segment‑level product owners to decompose epics into executable user stories with well‑defined acceptance criteria, architectural constraints, and measurable NFRs. Serve as the final arbiter on cross‑segment feature scope and dependency sequencing.

Governance & Compliance Leadership

Lead architecture and product checkpoints for cross‑segment solutions. Ensure all designs conform to enterprise security, privacy, and regulatory requirements including HIPAA/PHI, ONC interoperability rules, and DoD/TRICARE data standards where applicable. Represent the combined product and architecture voice in governance forums (ARB, TRB, MOR).

Data & Integration Strategy

Define integration contracts, API standards, and domain data boundaries for cross‑segment data flows. Ensure observability, data lineage, and end‑to‑end data protection for shared assets spanning pharmacy benefit, clinical EMR, home health operational, and military health domains on Snowflake, Databricks, and Azure data platforms.

Platform Reuse & Pattern Stewardship

Proactively identify opportunities to reuse components, services, and architectural patterns across segments. Evangelize shared capabilities over duplicated build; build quantitative business cases for platform consolidation where segment convergence creates measurable efficiency and reduces long‑term technical debt.

Stakeholder Alignment

Act as the primary connector between segment business leaders, product owners, engineering leads, EA Activation, security, data, and enterprise CIO teams. Translate complex architectural and product decisions into narratives that resonate at every level—from PI planning rooms to executive briefings and maintain alignment across four distinct segment operating rhythms.

Preferred Qualifications

CROSS-SEGMENT DOMAIN DEPTH

• Experience supporting or architecting solutions for pharmacy benefit management (PBM), medication therapy management, specialty pharmacy, or retail pharmacy platforms, including integration with pharmacy dispensing systems and PBM claims engines.

• Familiarity with TRICARE and military health benefit administration; experience with DoD/VA interoperability requirements, electronic health record systems used in military contexts, or government health benefit program integrations.

• Experience with primary care clinical workflows, EMR integrations (Epic, Cerner, or equivalent), value‑based care program architecture, or risk‑stratified care management platforms.

• Knowledge of Home Health operational workflows—clinical document management, authorization/eligibility automation, visit scheduling, and Home Health OASIS/PDGM reimbursement data requirements.

• Demonstrated product or architecture leadership managing strategy across multiple business lines with distinct regulatory, operational, and technical profiles simultaneously.

AGENTIC AI & PLATFORM SKILLS

• Agent orchestration: planning loops, tool/function calling, role assignment, and multi‑agent collaboration patterns for production healthcare workflows.

• Long‑ and short‑term memory management, context window optimization, and retrieval strategies for AI assistants operating across complex, multi‑domain knowledge bases.

• Human‑in‑the‑loop design: override workflows, confidence thresholds, escalation paths, and audit trails for AI outputs in clinically sensitive or compliance‑gated contexts.

• Telemetry and evaluation: distributed tracing, evaluation frameworks (LLM‑as‑judge, human eval pipelines), A/B testing for AI‑assisted features, and latency/cost SLO definition.

• Reliability patterns for agentic systems: structured retries, graceful fallbacks, circuit breakers, and deterministic handoffs between human and automated decision nodes.

• FHIR R4 / SMART on FHIR integration patterns; familiarity with ONC interoperability and information‑blocking rules as they apply to AI‑enabled clinical data access.

• Tool ecosystem integration: REST/GraphQL API orchestration, MCP server configuration, vector database design (Pinecone, Azure AI Search, pgvector), and feature store patterns for ML‑adjacent workloads.

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE & GOVERNANCE

• Experience with enterprise identity and access management flows, Azure Active Directory / Entra ID group governance, and privileged access management within large multi‑tenant healthcare environments.

• Familiarity with portfolio governance and activation forums (ARB, TRB, MOR) and the ability to translate governance decisions into architecture‑informed delivery runways across multiple agile release trains.

• Knowledge of data mesh and data product patterns for distributed healthcare data ownership at segment scale, including federated governance and interoperability contracts.

Additional Information

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Pay Range

The compensation range below reflects a good faith estimate of starting base pay for full time (40 hours per week) employment at the time of posting. The pay range may be higher or lower based on geographic location and individual pay will vary based on demonstrated job related skills, knowledge, experience, education, certifications, etc.

$172,200 - $236,900 per year

This job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. This incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Description of Benefits

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, “Humana”) offers competitive benefits that support whole‑person well‑being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave), short‑term and long‑term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

About Us

About Humana: Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is a leading U.S. healthcare company. Through our Humana insurance services and our CenterWell healthcare services, we make it easier for the millions of people we serve to achieve their best health – delivering the care and service they need, when they need it. These efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare and Medicaid, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large. Learn more about what we offer atHumana.comand atCenterWell.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. This policy shall apply to all employment actions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, recall, termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation and selection for training, including apprenticeship, at all levels of employment.