About the role:
The Vice President of Architecture is responsible for defining and governing the overall technical architecture of the company’s SaaS platform. This role ensures that architectural decisions align with business goals, scale efficiently, control costs, and support long term growth.
The VP of Architecture partners closely with the CTO, engineering leadership, and product teams to provide clear architectural direction across cloud infrastructure, application platforms, data, and emerging technologies including AI. This role establishes shared patterns, standards, and principles that enable teams to move faster while reducing duplication, cost, and operational risk.
Responsibilities include:
Architectural Strategy and Ownership
- Define and own the long-term technical architecture and platform strategy
- Establish architectural principles, standards, and reference patterns
- Ensure architectural decisions align with organizational, operational and finance goals
- Serve as the final architectural authority for major platform and infrastructure decisions
- Balance near-term delivery needs with long-term sustainability
Cloud and Platform Architecture (AWS Focus)
- Own cloud architecture strategy with a primary focus on AWS
- Drive cost efficient, scalable, and resilient cloud designs
- Partner with engineering and cloud operations to optimize infrastructure spend
- Standardize core platform capabilities such as networking, identity, data, and observability
- Guide decisions around build vs buy for platform services
AI Architecture and Innovation
- Define approved architectural patterns for AI and machine learning capabilities
- Ensure AI solutions are scalable, secure, cost effective, and production ready
- Partner with engineering and product teams to embed AI into the platform intentionally
- Avoid fragmented or experimental AI implementations that create long term risk
- Stay current on AI platform capabilities and guide responsible adoption
Cross Team Alignment and Governance
- Align architectural decisions across engineering teams to avoid duplication
- Review and guide major design decisions and technical proposals
- Ensure reuse of shared services and platform capabilities
- Reduce architectural drift as teams and products scale
- Establish lightweight governance that enables speed without bureaucracy
Leadership and Influence
- Partner with the CTO on technology strategy and investment decisions
- Lead senior engineers and architects across the organization
- Mentor senior engineers across the organization
- Influence without direct ownership by building trust and technical credibility
- Communicate architectural direction clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field or equivalent experience
- 12 or more years of experience in software engineering and architecture roles
- Demonstrated experience designing and scaling SaaS platforms
- Deep experience with AWS based architectures
- Proven ability to define and evolve architecture in growing organizations
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, data platforms, and cloud native design
- Experience balancing technical quality, cost, and delivery speed
Preferred Qualifications:
- Previous experience in a VP, Head of Architecture, or Principal Architect role
- Experience driving architectural change in scaling SaaS environments
- Hands on experience with AI and machine learning system design
- Strong understanding of cloud cost optimization and financial impact
- Experience influencing senior engineering leaders without direct reporting lines
- Ability to communicate complex architectural concepts in clear, practical terms