Architect, Builder Enablement

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a clear, evolving view of enterprise infrastructure, services, and architectural patterns , helping teams understand how systems fit together today and where they are heading.
• Crystallize and communicate architectural principles that reflect how the organization builds and operates systems—grounded in real-world practices across teams rather than top-down mandates.
• Identify gaps, overlaps, and friction points across the technology landscape, and work with service owners and engineering teams to align opportunities for simplification, consolidation, or new shared capabilities.
• Partner with platform, infrastructure, and product engineering teams to build shared understanding of how systems interoperate , helping teams make informed design decisions that support a broader, cohesive architecture.
• Translate complex systems into accessible artifacts —diagrams, reference architectures, written guidance, and lightweight standards—that help engineers quickly understand the landscape and make effective choices.
• Act as a connector across teams , facilitating conversations that lead to alignment without requiring formal authority; build consensus around direction, tradeoffs, and priorities.
• Help identify high-value areas for Builder Enablement investment , creating the foundation for engineers to develop paved paths such as templates, tooling, and reusable components.
• Engage with engineering efforts at key moments (e.g., early design, major changes) to provide architectural guidance and ask thoughtful questions , balancing short-term needs with long-term system health.
• Evangelize a systems mindset , helping engineers and teams think beyond individual services to how their work contributes to a larger platform.
• Mentor engineers and architects across the organization, helping them develop stronger architectural thinking, navigate ambiguity, and make better tradeoffs .
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of relevant experience
• Experience designing and evolving distributed systems and/or enterprise platforms , with an understanding of how services, infrastructure, and data systems interact at scale
• Deep, hands-on experience building software or platform systems in a production environment. While this role is not primarily focused on day-to-day coding, prior experience as a builder is essential to establish credibility, inform architectural judgment, and ensure recommendations reflect how systems are actually built and operated
• Ability to analyze complex technical landscapes and synthesize them into clear mental models, diagrams, and guidance that others can use
• Experience working across multiple teams to build alignment and shared understanding without direct authority
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate between deep technical detail and high-level architectural concepts for a range of audiences
• Experience partnering with engineering teams to influence design decisions and improve system consistency over time
• Familiarity with modern cloud environments (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and common architectural patterns in cloud-native and hybrid systems
• Comfort operating at multiple levels— diving into technical detail when needed while maintaining a broader systems perspective
• A pragmatic approach to architecture, with an understanding that tradeoffs are inevitable and that progress often comes through incremental alignment rather than perfect solutions
• A track record of challenging assumptions constructively and helping teams evolve how they build and operate systems

Desired Characteristics