Enterprise Architect (Commercial Lending) / Contract to Hire

Job Title: Enterprise Architect Commercial Lending

Location: Hybrid/Buffalo, NY Preferred (3 days onsite/2 days remote) / Remote (Will be expected to travel to Buffalo, NY every 4-6 weeks with Monday through Thursday in office)

Department: Enterprise Application Development

Reports To: Enterprise Chief Architect

Company Profile

Founded in 1856, our client has grown from a local institution in Buffalo, New York, to one of the largest regional banks in the United States. With over $208 billion in assets, our client is recognized for its financial strength and resilience, having maintained profitability through economic challenges. The bank is committed to innovation and community-focused banking, aiming to deliver exceptional financial services while investing in technology and processes to better serve its customers. Our client's ambition is to remain a trusted partner for individuals and businesses, driving growth and excellence in the financial sector.

Job Summary

As an Enterprise Architect for Commercial Lending, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the organization s technology strategy, landscape, and roadmap. In this role, you will serve as an integrative force across business and technology domains, establish trusted advisor partnerships with senior leaders, and drive the architecture of complex, high-priority initiatives that deliver significant business value. Your work will influence large-scale programs that are critical to the bank s long-term success, ensuring scalable, resilient, and forward-looking solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Planning: Define and evolve enterprise architecture strategies and roadmaps that align business priorities, regulatory requirements, and long-term technology vision.
• High-Level Design: Develop high-level architectural models and frameworks that support secure, scalable, and resilient solutions across the bank, aligned with the strategic direction established by Enterprise Architecture function.
• Detailed Solutions Architecture: Translate strategic objectives into actionable solution architectures that provide clear direction to delivery and engineering teams.
• Regulatory & Risk Alignment: Ensure architectural solutions comply with financial industry regulations, internal risk frameworks, and data privacy standards, supporting auditability and operational integrity.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with business leaders, product owners, and technology teams to ensure architectural alignment across client services, digital platforms, and core banking systems.
• Implementation Leadership: Provide architectural oversight and governance throughout the solution delivery lifecycle, ensuring adherence to enterprise standards and successful on-time execution of high-impact initiatives.
• Trusted Advisor: Build strong relationships with management, providing expert advice and insights to support decision-making.
• Communication: Communicate complex architectural concepts clearly and persuasively to both technical and non-technical audiences, fostering alignment and informed decision-making.
• Vendor & Partner Engagement: Collaborate with external technology providers and service partners to ensure solutions meet enterprise standards for performance, cost-effectiveness, and agility in a highly regulated environment.

Expected Skills

• Strategic Thinking: Ability to align technology architecture with business strategy, identifying opportunities to drive value, efficiency, and innovation across complex financial services ecosystems.
• Business Acumen: Deep understanding of financial services, particularly the needs in the Commercial Banking sector, with the ability to translate those needs into effective architectural solutions.
• Enterprise Architecture Expertise: Proficiency in developing and applying enterprise architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman) to guide technology planning, governance, and execution.
• Solution Design: Skilled in designing end-to-end solutions that are scalable, secure, and aligned with enterprise standards, while addressing both current and future-state business capabilities. Ensure interoperability between systems along the entire value stream of commercial lending from opportunity to payoff.
• Technology Integration: Experience integrating diverse systems, platforms, and data sources to create cohesive, interoperable solutions that support seamless client experiences and operational efficiency.
• Risk and Compliance Awareness: Strong grasp of regulatory and risk considerations in financial services, with the ability to architect solutions that meet compliance, audit, and data governance requirements.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Proven ability to collaborate with senior business and technology leaders, facilitating alignment, managing expectations, and influencing strategic decisions.
• Communication and Visualization: Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex architectural concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences through clear documentation, presentations, and visual models.
• Change Leadership: Ability to lead through ambiguity, drive consensus, and support organizational change as part of large-scale transformation initiatives.
• Critical Thinking Skills: A creative and analytical approach to diagnosing and resolving technical challenges.
• Technology Enablement: Lead the selection and implementation of CRE technologies (e.g., IWMS, CAFM, lease accounting, smart building platforms). Ensure integration with enterprise systems such as ERP, HRIS, and financial reporting tools.
• Continuous Learning: A passion for staying updated on financial services related technologies and their rapidly evolving tools, features, and best practices.

Expected Knowledge

• Strong knowledge of financial services industry domains, particularly commercial banking services including commercial loans, lines of credit, leveraged finance, syndications, participations, leases, equipment finance, dealer floor plan, and asset-based lending.
• Understanding of modern technology architectures, including cloud, microservices, APIs, data platforms, and integration patterns
• Awareness of cybersecurity principles, data privacy standards, and secure architecture practices
• Familiarity with business capability modeling, value stream mapping, and other business architecture techniques
• Knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements relevant to financial institutions (e.g., FFIEC, SOX, GLBA, GDPR)
• Proficiency in using architectural modeling tools and documentation standards
• Knowledge of IT governance, portfolio management, and enterprise change management processes
• Understanding of data architecture concepts, including data governance, master data management, and analytics enablement
• Familiarity with emerging technologies and their potential impact on financial services
• Experience in vendor and third-party solution evaluation, selection, and integration strategies
• Awareness of agile, DevOps, and product-centric delivery models and how architecture supports them
• Experience with commercial lending origination and servicing platforms (such as nCino loan origination system and AFS Vision commercial loan accounting system and Bottomline commercial treasury management systems) as well as corollary systems that manage customers, sales activities, collateral, construction loan administration, equipment and dealer floor plan, etc.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or related field
• 7+ years in cloud architecture, with 3+ years focused on Commercial lending related technology within a financial institution.
• Knowledge of institutional banking products and services including capital markets, investment management, structured finance, and M&A
• Experience in driving and delivering innovation within the realm of financial services
• Working knowledge of architecture diagramming practices, architectural frameworks, and/or enterprise architecture tools
• Work experience in software engineering, software delivery and/or solution architecture including developing and integrating applications using relevant software architecture principles and patterns

Expected Deliverables

• Architecture Roadmaps: Visual and narrative representations of the existing and target architecture landscapes, including capability maps, system interactions, and technology stacks, that align technology capabilities with business goals across technology domains.
• High-Level Design Documents: Comprehensive documentation for major initiatives or programs, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and business requirements.
• Architecture Principles and Standards: Defined guidelines and best practices to ensure consistency, scalability, and compliance across technology solutions.
• Technology Assessments and Recommendations: Evaluations of emerging technologies, platforms, or vendor solutions with documented recommendations for adoption or integration.
• Gap Analyses and Impact Assessments: Identification of gaps between current and future states, along with assessments of business and technical impacts.
• Stakeholder Presentations and Briefings: Engaging executive-level presentations that communicate progress and outcomes to business and technology leaders.
• Reference Architectures and Patterns: Reusable templates and design patterns that accelerate solution delivery and promote architectural consistency.