Overview
First Citizens Bank seeks an accomplished Principal Enterprise Architect to drive enterprise-wide execution of resiliency, disaster recovery, scalability, and high availability strategies across our technology portfolio. This role extends beyond architecture design to lead cross-functional alignment, influence decision-making, and accelerate execution across business, engineering, infrastructure, and operational teams.
The ideal candidate combines deep architectural expertise with exceptional organizational awareness, enabling them to navigate complex stakeholder environments, challenge assumptions constructively, and drive pragmatic solutions that balance business objectives, technology strategy, operational risk, and regulatory requirements. As a senior enterprise leader, you will build consensus, influence outcomes without direct authority, and ensure resiliency and scalability objectives are embedded into strategic initiatives and day-to-day technology delivery.
Remote eligible.
Responsibilities
Enterprise Leadership, Influence & Execution - Serve as the enterprise leader for resiliency and scalability outcomes, driving alignment across technology, operations, risk, and business stakeholders.
- Leverage deep organizational awareness to identify dependencies, remove barriers, and accelerate execution across complex initiatives.
- Influence strategic investment decisions by articulating technology risks, opportunities, trade-offs, and business impacts.
- Constructively challenge teams, leaders, and established approaches through data-driven analysis, problem solving, and collaborative engagement.
- Build consensus across diverse stakeholder groups while maintaining focus on long-term enterprise resiliency and scalability objectives.
- Partner with executives and delivery leaders to ensure architectural priorities translate into measurable business and technology outcomes.
- Establish governance mechanisms that drive accountability for resiliency, recovery, and availability commitments across the enterprise.
Enterprise Architecture Strategy & Leadership - Define enterprise architecture strategies aligned with business objectives, operational resilience requirements, and growth trajectories.
- Establish enterprise standards, patterns, and reference architectures that enable scalable and resilient technology delivery.
- Lead enterprise decision-making processes that balance innovation velocity, operational stability, regulatory expectations, and risk management.
- Drive multi-year technology roadmaps and influence execution priorities across application, infrastructure, and platform teams.
Resiliency & Disaster Recovery Leadership - Lead the enterprise resiliency agenda by partnering with engineering, infrastructure, operations, security, and risk teams.
- Establish enterprise disaster recovery strategies, recovery objectives, testing programs, and remediation plans.
- Drive organizational readiness through resiliency exercises, scenario planning, and operational preparedness initiatives.
- Facilitate post-incident reviews that focus on systemic improvement, accountability, and actionable remediation.
- Influence technology investment decisions that improve enterprise resilience and reduce operational risk.
Scalability & High Availability Leadership - Drive adoption of enterprise-wide scalability and availability patterns across critical business platforms.
- Partner with product and engineering leaders to proactively identify growth constraints and operational risks.
- Lead capacity planning and availability strategies that support business growth and evolving customer demand.
- Ensure architecture and engineering decisions support established service-level objectives and business resiliency goals.
Architecture Advisory & Technical Leadership - Provide architectural leadership for mission-critical initiatives and major transformation programs.
- Conduct architecture reviews focused on identifying risk, improving execution outcomes, and accelerating delivery.
- Coach technical leaders and engineering teams on resiliency, scalability, and operational excellence practices.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to executives and technology leaders during strategic planning, major incidents, and critical decision points.
Qualifications
Bachelor's Degree and 10 years of experience in Application Development, Systems Engineering, or Information Technology management OR High School Diploma or GED and 14 years of experience in Application Development, Systems Engineering, or Information Technology management
Preferred Qualifications & Experience Experience - 15+ years of technology leadership experience with at least 10 years in enterprise, solution, or platform architecture roles.
- Demonstrated success leading enterprise-wide initiatives through influence rather than direct authority.
- Proven ability to drive alignment and execution across large, complex organizations with competing priorities.
- Experience navigating highly matrixed environments and building consensus among senior business and technology leaders.
- Strong financial services experience with a deep understanding of regulatory resiliency expectations.
- Track record improving enterprise resiliency, scalability, disaster recovery readiness, or operational stability at scale.
Leadership & Communication - Exceptional ability to influence decision-making across executive, business, and technical stakeholder groups.
- Strong organizational awareness and political acumen with the ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics effectively.
- Demonstrated ability to challenge assumptions and drive better outcomes through collaboration, critical thinking, and relationship leadership.
- Proven track record building coalitions, resolving competing priorities, and driving enterprise alignment.
- Experience leading through ambiguity and guiding organizations through complex technology and operational decisions.
- Ability to translate architectural concepts into clear business outcomes, risks, and investment recommendations.
Business Acumen - Ability to evaluate technology decisions through the lens of business strategy, operational risk, customer impact, and regulatory requirements.
- Experience influencing executive-level prioritization and funding decisions.
- Skilled at aligning technology investments with measurable business outcomes and enterprise objectives.
What Sets You Apart You are more than an architect. You are a trusted enterprise leader who combines technical depth with the ability to influence people, shape decisions, and drive execution across organizational boundaries. You understand that successful architecture is not defined by diagrams or standards, but by outcomes, adoption, and measurable improvements in business resilience.
You use architectural expertise to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions constructively, and guide teams toward practical solutions. You possess the organizational awareness to navigate a complex enterprise, build coalitions among diverse stakeholders, and create alignment where priorities compete. Whether engaging executives, architects, engineers, operations teams, or risk partners, you consistently bring people together around shared objectives and deliver meaningful, lasting results.
This job posting is expected to remain active for 30 days from the initial posting date listed above. If it is necessary to extend this deadline, the posting will remain active as appropriate. Job postings may come down early due to business need or a high volume of applicants.
The base pay for this position is generally between $155,000 and $250,000. Actual starting base pay will be determined based on skills, experience, location, and other non-discriminatory factors permitted by law. For some roles, total compensation may also include variable incentives, bonuses, benefits, and/or other awards as outlined in the offer of employment.
Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates. More information can be found at
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