Executive Director, Application Architecture

Executive Director, Application Architecture

Salary: Open + Bonus

Location: Chicago, IL

Hybrid: 3 days onsite, 2 days remote

Qualifications

• Bachelor s degree
• Demonstrated experience defining and enforcing application architecture standards at organizational scale across complex, multi-system portfolios
• Deep hands-on background in application architecture APIs, integration patterns, distributed systems, event-driven architecture, and microservices
• Experience with both legacy/brownfield modernization and greenfield cloud-native development
• Strong working knowledge of CI/CD, automated testing, and quality gate enforcement as architecture concerns
• Ability to lead through influence as well as authority building alignment across Engineering, Security, QA, and Governance without losing the ability to make hard calls
• Excellent communication skills able to represent architecture decisions to executive leadership and translate strategy into actionable standards for development teams
• Hands-on experience with Java, Kafka, Kubernetes, and cloud-native architectures on AWS or equivalent
• Experience with scaled agile frameworks (SAFe) in large enterprise delivery programs
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development practices and their implications for architecture and standards

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and set direction for a team of application architects, each retaining individual domain focus across clearing, risk, data, APIs, and integrations
• Establish and enforce architecture standards across applications, integration patterns, API design, tech stack selection, and software design patterns
• Enforce design patterns and architectural guardrails across teams delivering on both legacy and greenfield systems
• Establish non-functional requirements standards: performance, scalability, fault tolerance, observability as first-class architecture concerns
• Coordinate with Platform Architecture to ensure application designs reflect infrastructure reality and operational constraints
• Serve as the primary architecture partner to Engineering, Product, Financial Risk Management, and Quantitative Risk Management
• Collaborate with Security, QA, and Governance/Risk to ensure architectural decisions satisfy regulatory requirements including Regulation SCI and CPMI-IOSCO principles
• Conduct architecture and design reviews with enough rigor to catch problems before they reach production
• Manage and develop a team