Senior Enterprise Architect

Job Summary

The Senior Enterprise Architect role is intended to align architecture support to a specific application or technology suite, and support the application or technology suite through any internal or external impacts. This role will contribute towards defining and driving an application or technology area to the target state architecture. It is an individual contributor role that aligns to one or more application or technology areas within a sub‑domain such as Digital, Integration, Care Center, or Core Applications.

It will work with various IT and business stakeholders and provide leadership on key technology initiatives. Senior Enterprise Architects are expected to cultivate and maintain relationships with manager‑level leaders within IT in support of their aligned areas, and are called upon to onboard and mentor less experienced architects.

More specifically, this position focuses on Data and Business Architecture. Architects in this role are expected to have solid Data Architecture experience at both the strategic and technical ends of the spectrum, including data modeling (transactional and analytical), data lakes, data governance, data stream processing, and familiarity with tools such as Microstrategy, Azure data services, Snowflake, Rocket, Databricks, and similar tools.

The role also contributes to Business Architecture artifacts such as Capability/Operational models and Value Stream modeling, and aligns the latest Data technologies with business goals. Coordination with program and project managers, application owners, and other architects is necessary to successfully align on approach and execution. Flexibility to take on new, unfamiliar challenges with a positive attitude is desired.

• Enterprise Architecture: Develop and maintain current state and target state architecture for application or technology areas, ensuring alignment with business strategy. Accountable for program and project architecture across enterprise‑wide initiatives, including custom development, third‑party integrations, and implementations.
• Architecture Planning and Project Support: Participate in business and IT planning. Create architectural documentation to support the target state. Promote alignment across business and technology areas, assist with estimation and prioritization, and lead architecture delivery in projects that impact the aligned application or technology area.
• Architecture Governance: Ensure that the application or technology area meets functional and non‑functional requirements, manage capacity and performance models, document and manage technical debt and risk, and provide thought leadership in strategy and problem resolution. Work closely with technical teams to enforce architectural standards and manage exceptions as technical debt.
• Documentation: Produce and maintain a library of reference architecture documentation, including diagrams, written requirements, roadmaps, and guidance. Perform periodic reviews of deployed solutions to ensure solution health and compliance with reference architectures, taking corrective action when necessary.
• Technical Debt Management: Manage the technical debt introduced or mitigated through programs and projects within the application or technology area.
• Professional Advancement: Contribute to the Architecture Profession capability by improving Bread Financial architecture practice and reference architectures, and participate in internal and external architecture communities to enhance the architecture profession and technology capability.
• Human Relations: Diffuse problematic situations, resolve conflicts, and communicate complex concepts in layman’s terms. Act as an enabling partner, provide options, and mentor less experienced team members.
• Technical Knowledge and Application: Proficient in at least three application and technology platforms (preferably five), and at least two major technology ecosystems such as Java, mobile development, integration and API management, Cobol, Mainframe, etc.
• Scope of Role: Support 25 to 45 business capabilities across an application or technology area. Complexity is medium to high relative to…