Principal Enterprise Architect

Principal Enterprise Architect

First Student is a leading provider of student transportation solutions, dedicated to ensuring safe and efficient transportation for students. Our commitment to innovation has led us to pioneer electric school buses and to build and continuously refine a substantial portfolio of custom digital products on AWS — spanning the customer-facing experiences families and school districts rely on and the internal platforms that run our operations.

As we modernize the industry — increasingly through cloud-native architecture and the responsible adoption of autonomous, agent-based systems — we are seeking a Principal Enterprise Architect to build and keep coherent the technical foundation of that transformation.

The Principal Enterprise Architect is the senior individual-contributor authority on enterprise architecture at First Student. This is a hands-on, building role rather than a people-leadership or review role: influence is earned through technical depth, working artifacts, and the ability to turn complex, cross-functional designs into coherent architecture teams can actually build on. The role carries an enterprise-wide remit and concentrates on the problems of greatest consequence to the business.

• Enterprise Architecture Authority
• Custom Digital Product Architecture
• Shared Digital Services & Integration Architecture
• Cloud Architecture (AWS)
• Agentic & Autonomous Software Development
• Security & Compliance by Design
• Architecture Governance & Standards
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Strategic Alignment
• Emerging Technology Assessment
• Operating-Model & Team-Topology Architecture

• Bachelor's degree.
• 8+ years of enterprise architecture experience, with demonstrated depth and breadth across multiple IT domains.
• Proven experience architecting and integrating significant, large-scale custom software products — both customer-facing and internal — including the challenge of making a portfolio of distinct products operate as a coherent whole.
• Demonstrable, hands-on experience designing or architecting with AI and agent-based systems.
• Deep AWS cloud architecture experience, including reference architectures, landing zones, well-architected design, and automated or dynamic provisioning.
• A proven ability to turn complex, multi-stakeholder designs into coherent architecture, and to build the scaffolding that makes it adoptable.
• Learning agility — a clear track record of rapidly mastering, and re-architecting around, fast-moving technologies and tooling.
• Strong business acumen, with the ability to translate architecture into business terms and to focus effort where it matters most.
• Excellent communication and influence skills, with the ability to lead through expertise rather than positional authority.
• Familiarity with architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman, FEAF) as practical tools, and modern delivery and quality practices (Agile/Scrum, ITIL). TOGAF certification a plus.
• AWS certification (e.g., Solutions Architect – Professional) a plus.
• Experience with EV technology, IoT, digital platforms, and on-bus technology solutions is highly desirable.

First for a reason:

At First Student, we are a family of 60,000+ employees who take pride in safely transporting more than 5 million students and passengers to and from their destinations each day! Our family of brands include Transco, Total Transportation, Maggies Paratransit, and GVC II. Our employees are at the forefront of safety and innovation; they create and implement the most advanced training and technology the transportation industry has to offer.

In the state of Washington, all technician and driving positions, including but not limited to van drivers and any other position requiring employees to drive a company-owned vehicle, are considered safety-sensitive and are therefore subject to drug and alcohol testing, including cannabis.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status. First is also committed to providing a drug-free workplace. First will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles Fair Chance Ordinance, and any other fair chance law.

Philadelphia's Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards Ordinance Poster is at this link or upon request https://(Use the "Apply for this Job" box below)..