Senior Director Architecture

Our vision for the future is based on the idea that transforming financial lives starts by giving our people the freedom to transform their own. We have a flexible work environment, and fluid career paths. We not only encourage but celebrate internal mobility. We also recognize the importance of purpose, well-being, and work-life balance. Within Empower and our communities, we work hard to create a welcoming and inclusive environment, and our associates dedicate thousands of hours to volunteering for causes that matter most to them.

Chart your own path and grow your career while helping more customers achieve financial freedom. Empower Yourself.

The Sr. Director, Architecture is a senior leader responsible for both people leadership and architectural direction across critical platforms at Empower, with emphasis on data, integration, and modernization. This role builds and leads a high-performing architecture organization, sets clear technical direction, and ensures teams deliver secure, resilient, and scalable solutions in a regulated financial services environment. The Sr. Director establishes standards and reference patterns, drives modernization outcomes, and partners closely with engineering, product, infrastructure, and security leaders to accelerate time-to-value while reducing risk and technical debt. Success in this role is measured by team effectiveness, adoption of architectural standards, delivery outcomes, and measurable improvements in platform stability, reuse, and modernization progress.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and retain a high-performing architecture team through hiring, coaching, performance management, and career development
• Establish role clarity, expectations, and growth paths for architects, ensuring consistent practice maturity and strong engagement
• Define and evolve current-state and target-state architectures aligned to business strategy, regulatory expectations, and long-term sustainability
• Establish and maintain enterprise and domain reference architectures, standards, and guiding principles that enable consistent solution design
• Lead architectural governance processes, including architecture reviews, decision records, and lifecycle guidance for technology adoption and retirement
• Ensure architectural components and standards are fully documented, including value proposition, current and target state, operational considerations, KPIs, and decision rationale
• Enable delivery teams through reusable patterns, templates, guardrails, and clear architectural guidance that reduces friction and rework
• Provide architectural leadership across data architecture, data management, data security, data delivery, advanced analytics enablement, and business architecture alignment
• Partner with engineering, product, infrastructure, security, risk, and business stakeholders to align architecture decisions with delivery and operational outcomes
• Drive modernization efforts that reduce technical debt, simplify integrations, and improve system resilience and scalability
• Guide API-first and event-driven integration approaches that improve reuse, consistency, and observability
• Promote security, privacy, and resiliency by design through architectural standards and review practices
• Support cloud maturity through cost-aware, operationally sound architecture decisions and platform enablement
• Evaluate emerging technologies and innovation opportunities, converting successful proofs into scalable, governed capabilities
• Plan and manage team capacity, prioritization, and investment alignment to meet strategic objectives and delivery commitments

Required Skills

• Demonstrated experience leading people, including coaching, developing talent, setting expectations, and driving accountability for outcomes
• Significant experience in enterprise, solution, or domain architecture within complex environments, ideally regulated financial services
• Demonstrated ability to define target-state architecture and drive adoption through standards, governance, and roadmaps
• Strong architectural breadth with depth in data and integration concepts, including APIs, event-driven patterns, and cross-cutting concerns such as security and resiliency
• Experience establishing and operating architectural governance, including tradeoff analysis and decision facilitation
• Proven ability to influence and align senior stakeholders across engineering, product, infrastructure, security, and business teams
• Ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes, risks, and value statements
• Strong written and verbal communication skills suitable for executive and senior stakeholder audiences
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, or equivalent practical experience

Nice to Have Qualifications

• Experience leading architecture across multiple domains in a federated or matrixed operating model
• Background in wealth management, retirement, or similarly regulated industries
• Hands-on involvement in modernization or large-scale transformation initiatives
• Familiarity with cloud architecture, cost optimization practices, or platform enablement models
• Experience supporting AI or advanced analytics adoption with appropriate architectural guardrails
• Architecture, cloud, or security certifications relevant to enterprise or platform architecture

Education

• Bachelor’s and/or master’s degree in computer science or related field (information systems, mathematics, software engineering, etc.)

Physical Requirements/Working Conditions

• Normal Office Working Conditions

We are an equal opportunity employer with a commitment to diversity.  All individuals, regardless of personal characteristics, are encouraged to apply.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, pregnancy, religion, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable state or local law.