Director of Architecture & Engineering

ACN COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES LLC•Charlotte, NC

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Leads ACN’s Architecture & Engineering (A&E) organization, combining hands-on software and cloud engineering with enterprise architecture leadership. The role is accountable for coherent, actionable technical solutions, future-state modernization, engineering standards, and team effectiveness across VIP, Salesforce, and integrated platforms. The position is initially approximately 50% hands-on while establishing the function, evolving toward 25–40% as team capabilities mature. The Director leads and develops technical specialists, owns current- and future-state enterprise architecture, and provides hands-on architecture, prototyping, coding, review, and troubleshooting for complex applications, AWS, integration, and data solutions as needed. The role directs incremental modernization of legacy Oracle-centric systems, oversees architecture deliverables, and partners with VIP and Application Delivery managers on solution readiness and technical consultation. The position owns engineering effectiveness across development standards, CI/CD, IaC, DevSecOps, automated quality, SRE, observability, resilience, reusable components, and technical documentation. It also builds cross-platform knowledge, presents material designs to the Architecture Review Board, progressively exercises delegated architectural authority as governance matures, and evaluates emerging technologies and AI-enabled solutions with attention to integration, security, data governance, operational support, and business value. This is an onsite role at ACN’s designated office or facility. The standard office schedule is Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Occasional travel may be required for continuing education, training, or support. Successful candidates must complete mandatory security training during onboarding.

Requirements

Demonstrated progression from hands-on software engineering to enterprise/cloud architecture and technical leadership, with the ability to design, build, implement, and support complex solutions.
Deep practical AWS experience, including serverless and event-driven systems (Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge, SQS/SNS, Step Functions), APIs, IAM, RDS, S3, observability, containers, and infrastructure as code.
Strong application development foundation in Java, Node.js/TypeScript, Python, or comparable languages; proficiency in distributed systems, asynchronous processing, integration, and secure software design.
Strong relational data architecture knowledge, including SQL, Oracle/PLSQL concepts, transactional integrity, data dependencies, and modernization of database-centric business logic; specialist DBA tuning is not required.
Experience leading technical teams, challenging designs, setting engineering standards, managing technical work, and communicating architectural tradeoffs to business and IT leadership.
10–15+ years of progressive software engineering and architecture experience, including 3–5 years in technical leadership roles.
Proven delivery of enterprise architecture, cloud-native implementations, and incremental modernization of complex legacy systems.
Ability to work onsite at the designated office or facility under the standard expectations described in the posting.
Successful completion of mandatory security training during onboarding.
Ability to perform the essential functions of the job, with reasonable accommodations as applicable; physical demands include prolonged sitting and computer work, periodically standing, walking, hearing, listening, talking, seeing, using hands and arms, and lifting up to 15 pounds at times.

Nice To Haves

Practical understanding of AI/LLM architecture, enterprise integration, and governance.
Hands-on agentic AI, AWS Bedrock, RAG, or production AI integrations.
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related discipline; equivalent demonstrated experience is accepted.

Responsibilities

Lead and develop A&E technical specialists; assign solutioning work, coordinate expertise, manage priorities and work in progress, and hold the team accountable for timely, high-quality, complete outputs.
Own current- and future-state enterprise architecture and ensure solution designs address business processes, data flows, security, upstream and downstream dependencies, maintainability, and long-term platform direction.
Architect, prototype, code, review, and troubleshoot complex applications, AWS, integration, and data solutions when needed.
Direct incremental modernization of legacy, Oracle-centric systems, including compensation-engine architecture; trace relational dependencies and PL/SQL business logic, identify safe service boundaries, and partner with DBAs on performance and integrity.
Oversee architecture deliverables, including appropriate L0/L1/L2 diagrams, design decisions, alternatives, implementation approach, technical dependencies, risks, operational considerations, and effort estimates.
Partner with VIP and Application Delivery managers on solution readiness and technical consultation; own solutioning quality and timeliness while Delivery owns staffing commitments, execution, and production delivery.
Own engineering effectiveness across development standards, CI/CD, IaC, DevSecOps, automated quality, SRE, observability, resilience, reusable components, and technical documentation; delegate implementation to domain leads and measure adoption.
Build cross-platform knowledge and reduce key-person dependencies through collaboration, mentoring, cross-training, practical knowledge transfer, transitional work, and improved operating processes.
Present material designs to the Architecture Review Board for initial approval and progressively exercise delegated architectural authority as standards, consistency, and governance mature.
Evaluate emerging technologies and AI-enabled engineering and business solutions, considering integration, security, data governance, operational support, and business value.
Complete mandatory security training during onboarding.