Solutions Architect Director

Job Description

Job Description

Solutions Architect Director

Location: Hybrid, Columbus, OH metro area 
Department: Engineering
Reports To: VP of Technology
Direct Reports: Software Architects, Staff Engineers
Employment Type: Full-Time, Exempt

About the Role

A growing fintech company is looking for a Solutions Architect Director to run the day-to-day of its engineering organization. This is the senior execution seat: while the VP of Technology owns strategy and outcomes, you own how the work actually gets done. That means leading the team, keeping the platform reliable, moving delivery forward, and holding the bar on architecture across every system. You are the operational hub that turns leadership's priorities into shipped, measurable results, and the connective tissue that keeps a distributed engineering group pulling in one direction.

What You'll Be Measured On

1. Platform Reliability (99.9% uptime): You own the operational side of keeping systems up, monitoring, alerting, incident response, root-cause work, and the follow-through that stops repeats. Tracked by uptime, mean time to resolution, and incident trends.
2. Delivery Predictability: Get the team to a steady, reliable delivery rhythm. Tracked by sprint commitment rates, defect escape rate, cycle time, and hitting roadmap dates.
3. Distributed Team Effectiveness: Make the broader engineering group, wherever team members sit, function as one unit. Tracked by knowledge transfer, documentation depth, and each group's contribution to delivery.
4. Architecture Standards: Set the architectural guardrails and make sure they're followed. Tracked by design review coverage, architecture debt retired, and security and scalability compliance on new builds.
5. Intake-to-Delivery Efficiency: Run a clean project intake process so work starts with clarity. Tracked by intake-to-kickoff time, requirements clarity, and how often scope shifts mid-project.

What You'll Do

Leading the Team

• Run day-to-day management of the engineering team end to end: performance, hiring, onboarding, and growth
• Build a culture that takes ownership, values craft, and keeps improving
• Coach senior engineers, architects, and leads on where they're headed in their careers
• Shape team structure, role expectations, and advancement paths together with the VP
• Keep the VP current on team performance, delivery, SLA health, and where the org needs help

Owning Architecture

• Hold the architectural vision for the company's systems and set the standards for design, scalability, security, and reliability
• Run solution design reviews and act as the final technical call when escalations land
• Make sure architecture choices weigh reliability, scalability, flexibility, and security every time
• Put complex technical tradeoffs into plain terms business partners can act on

Keeping the Platform Up

• Own uptime and SLA performance day to day, with the monitoring, alerting, and incident processes behind them
• Lead post-incident reviews and remediation so the same thing doesn't break twice
• Get ahead of technical debt, infrastructure gaps, and scaling risks before they bite
• Flag resourcing or investment needs to the VP when targets are at risk

Connecting a Distributed Team

• Maintain the working interface that keeps all engineering groups aligned
• Keep knowledge transfer, documentation standards, and communication protocols healthy across locations
• Set clear scope, deliverables, and quality expectations for every group's contributions
• Give the VP a straight read on how well the distributed team is integrating

Driving Delivery

• Help run project intake and champion a consistent Agile/Scrum approach across the team
• Work with the TPM lead on sprint planning, grooming, and reviews, and keep status clear for the VP and business partners
• Translate business needs into engineering work and set realistic expectations on timelines

Budget and Vendors

• Take part in annual technology budgeting and present operating and capital proposals
• Watch departmental spend and report variances against plan
• Manage the vendor and contractor relationships tied to engineering work

What You Bring

Required

• 15+ years across software engineering and/or solution architecture, with a real track record of shipping modern systems to production at scale
• 5+ years leading engineering teams at a Director level or equivalent
• Sharp architectural judgment for systems that have to be scalable, secure, and resilient
• Strong Agile/Scrum command and experience running sprint-based teams
• A knack for making technical strategy clear to people who aren't technical
• A hands-on coding background you can still bring to design and code reviews
• Comfort folding AI and GenAI tools into how engineering gets done

Preferred

• Background in fintech or financial technology platforms
• Experience leading distributed or multi-site engineering teams
• Work with mobile or web SaaS products
• A history of standing up SLA frameworks and pushing reliability upward
• Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field