Chief Of Staff - Architecture

Title: Chief of Staff Architecture

Location: Hybrid: San Francisco, CA 94105

Duration: 6+ Months (Possible Extension or Hire)

About the Role

• As Chief of Staff to the Chief Architect and Engineering leadership, you will serve as a strategic advisor, force multiplier, and integrator across a large engineering team supporting an interim leader. This is a trusted leadership position focused on driving clarity, prioritization, and alignment across a complex and evolving technology organization. You will shape narratives, navigate ambiguity, steward key initiatives, and ensure the Engineering and Architecture leadership team operates with focus and impact. This role requires a background in business operations or program management, strong stakeholder or executive management skills, high emotional intelligence (EQ), and exceptional communication abilities. Ideal candidates have prior experience working with engineering or software development teams.

Top Skills:

1. Stakeholder Management
2. Business Operations
3. Executive Communications

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership Enablement
• Act as a right hand to the Chief Architect & Engineering Leader, synthesizing inputs across domains and ensuring strategic initiatives progress with clarity and speed.
• Serve as an integrator across Architecture, Engineering, Product, Experience Design (XD), and Platform organizations, resolving tensions, aligning intent, and embedding architectural influence in key efforts.
• Drive leadership priorities and follow-through, from briefings and preparation to facilitating high-impact conversations and decisions.

• Governance & Operating Model
• Shape and manage the architecture and engineering leadership operating rhythm, including staff meetings, executive reviews, architectural decision forums, and strategic offsites.
• Ensure clear accountability and engagement across working groups, steering councils, and executive cadences.
• Drive program governance and operating rhythm across enterprise architecture-led initiatives and SFDC implementation, managing executive cadences, working group alignments, and escalation pathways.

• Stakeholder & Cross-Org Alignment
• Bridge communication gaps between strategy and execution layers, ensuring direction is understood and reflected in delivery outcomes across GET Teams and overlaps with COO & PSET organizations.
• Coordinate hiring plans, vendor onboarding, and resource planning in partnership with Legal, Procurement, HR, and Finance, focusing on SoWs, RFIs/RFPs, and logistics without owning transactional details.
• Facilitate enterprise-wide stakeholder engagement and alignment, ensuring EA, Product, Engineering, Experience Design, and PMO are synchronized on strategic and delivery priorities.

• Decision Support & Communications
• Own executive-level communications and decision facilitation, including steering committee preparation, briefing books, architecture decision logs, and strategic readouts.
• Drive clarity through architecture decision logs, leadership readouts, and strategic updates.
• Develop and manage strategic messaging for transformation programs, including executive communications, internal updates, vision decks, and EA narratives, in collaboration with PMO and communications leads.
• Help tell the story of Enterprise Architecture and Engineering s value to the business, both internally and externally.

• Issue Navigation & Unblocking
• Proactively identify friction points, competing priorities, or misalignments and resolve them behind the scenes.
• Ensure follow-through on architectural workflows, milestone delivery, and technical alignment across multiple domains.
• Run the program s core execution engine, including stand-ups, status reviews, dependency and risk forums, ensuring cross-functional follow-through and real-time issue resolution.
• Proactively unblock architectural workflows by coordinating across teams, tracking architecture milestones, and ensuring deliverables are completed with quality and accountability.

• Change Management & Business Readiness
• Lead change management and business readiness efforts, designing communication strategies, enablement plans, and training collateral to support successful adoption and transformation outcomes.
• Support leadership effectiveness by managing priorities, preparing briefings, and acting as a strategic liaison between the Chief Architect/VP of EA and broader delivery teams.

Preferred Certifications:

• PMP (Project Management Professional)

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in fast-paced, matrixed technology environments, ideally in Engineering, Architecture, Strategy, or Chief of Staff roles.
• Deep understanding of enterprise architecture, platform engineering, and/or modern technology organizations.
• Proven ability to support and amplify senior technology leaders, with high EQ and executive presence.
• Exceptional communication and synthesis skills, comfortable influencing VPs and individual contributors alike.
• Ability to manage through ambiguity, bring structure to chaos, and unblock cross-organizational complexity.
• Trusted operator with a balance of strategic thinking and execution discipline.
• Bachelor s degree required; technical or business graduate degree a plus.