The Principal Enterprise Architect is a senior architecture leader responsible for shaping, guiding, and advancing enterprise architecture across the organization. Reporting to the Head of Enterprise Architecture and Engineering Enablement, this role translates enterprise strategy into practical architecture direction, standards, target-state designs, and transition roadmaps across business capabilities, applications, platforms, data, integration, cloud, security, and emerging technology domains. While architecture is foundational, the Principal Enterprise Architect will be responsible for designing enterprise solutions in close collaboration with the business and technology stakeholders. Where applicable the role will be accountable to build solutions that scale for the enterprise.
This position plays a critical role in connecting enterprise strategy to federated execution. The Principal Enterprise Architect partners with architecture, engineering, platform, security, data, and business technology leaders to ensure material technology decisions align with enterprise standards, target-state architecture, modernization priorities, and governance requirements.
The role requires strong strategic thinking, architecture breadth, executive communication, and the ability to influence across a large, complex, and federated enterprise environment.
The Principal Enterprise Architect provides architecture leadership and recommendations on material technology decisions and has delegated authority within the enterprise architecture operating model as assigned by the Head of Enterprise Architecture. The role is expected to escalate decisions with enterprise-wide impact, non-standard exceptions, or significant risk implications.
Key Responsibilities:
Enterprise Architecture Leadership
Support the Head of Enterprise Architecture in developing and evolving enterprise architecture strategy, principles, standards, and target-state roadmaps.
Define and maintain architecture perspectives across business, application, data, integration, cloud, platform, security, and AI-related capabilities as applicable.
Own enterprise standards, target state, governance, exceptions, material technology decision frameworks
Translate enterprise strategy and target-state direction into practical guidance for domain architecture and engineering teams.
Promote alignment across business units, shared services, and technology domains.
Strategic Architecture and Transformation
Provide architecture leadership for major strategic initiatives, modernization programs, and enterprise-impacting technology decisions.
Assess architecture options and recommend solutions that balance business value, cost, risk, resilience, time to market, and long-term maintainability.
Support enterprise transformation through simplification, rationalization, modernization, and platform reuse.
Identify opportunities to reduce duplication, retire legacy complexity, and improve interoperability across the enterprise.
Governance and Decision Support
Participate in and support enterprise architecture governance, standards councils, review boards, and strategic decision forums.
Evaluate material technology decisions using approved enterprise frameworks, including buy, build, reuse, partner, and retire options.
Review architecture proposals for compliance with enterprise standards, target-state architecture, and risk requirements.
Support management of architecture exceptions, including rationale, risk analysis, remediation paths, and time-bound approvals.
Available for production incidents with major impact to business operations
Cross-Functional Partnership
Partner with federated domain architects, platform leaders, engineering teams, data and AI teams, security, infrastructure, and business technology leaders to drive alignment.
Facilitate resolution of cross-domain design issues, architecture conflicts, and overlapping capability decisions.
Act as a trusted advisor to leaders across technology and business-aligned delivery organizations.
Ensure architecture direction is understood and applied consistently across federated teams.
Works with Business Unit heads and principal solution architects to translate enterprise direction into federated execution.
Risk, Security, and Resilience
Incorporate cybersecurity, privacy, resilience, recoverability, and regulatory considerations into architecture guidance and recommendations.
Partner with risk, security, and compliance stakeholders to ensure technology decisions align with enterprise control requirements.
Assess the operational and architectural implications of technology choices in regulated and high-availability environments.
Talent and Capability Development
Mentor and coach architects and senior technology professionals.
Contribute to architecture capability development, communities of practice, and architecture operating model maturity.
Support common role expectations, competency models, and quality standards across the architecture function.
Promote enterprise-first thinking, sound decision-making, and strong architecture discipline.
You Have:
Required Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
12+ years of progressive experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, domain architecture, or senior technology strategy roles.
Deep cross-domain expertise spanning applications, integration, data, AI, cloud, security, and platform strategy.
Experience supporting or leading architecture for large-scale transformation initiatives in complex enterprise environments.
Experience with architecture governance, standards development, target-state planning, and strategic technology decision-making.
Proven ability to influence across organizational boundaries without direct authority.
Strong written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.
Preferred Education and Experience
Experience in insurance, financial services, healthcare, or another highly regulated industry.
Experience in a federated technology organization with centralized architecture direction and distributed execution.
Experience with cloud modernization, API strategies, platform engineering, data ecosystems, and enterprise integration.
Familiarity with AI-enabled enterprise capabilities, automation, and emerging technology trends.
Advanced degree and/or relevant certifications such as TOGAF, SAFe, AWS, Azure, GCP, or equivalent.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Strong knowledge of enterprise architecture principles, methods, and governance practices.
Broad understanding of enterprise technology domains and cross-domain dependencies.
Ability to develop target-state architecture and pragmatic transition approaches.
Strong business acumen and ability to connect architecture decisions to business outcomes.
Ability to assess tradeoffs among speed, cost, quality, risk, and strategic fit.
Strong facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
Ability to communicate effectively with executive, business, and technical audiences.
Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity and lead through influence.
Salary Range:
$178,690.00 - $293,560.00The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.
Our Promise
At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals. Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.
Inspire Well-Being
As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.
Accommodations
Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.
Visa Sponsorship
Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.
Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment
As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools") to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.
Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to [email protected], making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via [email protected].
Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here.
Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.
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