Director of Architecture - Global Specialty

Director, Architecture

We're determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. Join our team as we help shape the future.

The Director, Architecture serves as a senior architecture leader responsible for advancing strategic architecture initiatives across The Hartford's Global Specialty business. This role partners with product, value steam leaders, value stream teams and other technology leaders to develop business-aligned architecture solutions, contribute to architecture strategy development, and ensure Global Specialty Architecture standards align with enterprise architecture principles and target-state roadmaps.

The Director will provide architecture leadership across key transformation initiatives, establish business and technology architectures that support strategic objectives, and participate in architecture governance processes that drive consistency, simplification, and long-term sustainability of the technology portfolio.

This position operates as an individual contributor and strategic advisor, leveraging deep architecture expertise and insurance industry knowledge to influence technology direction and business outcomes across the organization.

This role will have a hybrid work schedule, with the expectation of working in an office (Columbus, OH, Chicago, IL, Hartford, CT or Charlotte, NC) 3 days a week (Tuesday through Thursday).

Architecture Strategy & Transformation

• Contribute to the development and evolution of Global Specialty architecture strategies, roadmaps, and target-state architectures.
• Lead architecture efforts for strategic business and technology transformation initiatives.
• Partner with product and technology stakeholders to translate business objectives into architecture outcomes and technology roadmaps.
• Assess current-state capabilities and identify opportunities for modernization, simplification, and business enablement.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, industry trends, and architecture approaches to support business strategy and innovation objectives.

Business Architecture

• Develop and maintain business capability maps, value streams, and business architecture artifacts that support strategic planning and investment decisions.
• Analyze business processes, organizational capabilities, and technology dependencies to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Support capability-based planning and business transformation initiatives across the Global Specialty portfolio.
• Establish traceability between business objectives, capabilities, initiatives, and technology solutions.

Enterprise & Solution Architecture

• Develop future-state application, integration, and information architecture models supporting business objectives.
• Provide architecture leadership and guidance for strategic programs and initiatives.
• Define architecture principles, reference architectures, and solution patterns aligned with Global Specialty and Hartford's enterprise standards.
• Conduct architecture assessments and provide recommendations to improve business and technology alignment.
• Collaborate with solution architects, engineering teams, and delivery organizations to ensure architectural consistency across initiatives.

Architecture Governance

• Participate in architecture governance processes, review boards, and technology standards reviews.
• Evaluate proposed solutions for alignment with architecture principles, standards, and target-state roadmaps.
• Identify architecture risks, technology gaps, and strategic dependencies and recommend mitigation approaches.
• Contribute to the development and maintenance of architecture standards, governance processes, and decision frameworks.
• Support portfolio planning activities by providing architecture insights and recommendations.

Strategic Advisory & Stakeholder Engagement

• Serve as a trusted architecture advisor to business and technology leaders.
• Facilitate architecture workshops, architecture strategy sessions, and solution reviews with stakeholders across the organization.
• Communicate architecture recommendations and tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Influence architecture and technology decisions through expertise, collaboration, and strategic thinking.
• Build strong partnerships across business, product, data, and technology organizations.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Business, or related discipline.
• 10+ years of IT experience, demonstrating hands-on experience in designing and implementing robust enterprise level solutions with a broad understanding of traditional and modern software technology frameworks, platforms, vendor software solutions, development tools, and processes.
• Demonstrated management experience in leading software architecture and engineering teams; ability to coach and mentor architecture…