Director, Technology Architecture, Design & Delivery

Focus Financial Partners•St. Louis, MO

About The Position

The Director, Technology Architecture, Design & Delivery leads the Technology Architecture function within Infrastructure & Operations (I&O). This role partners with I&O Service Owners to design and deliver scalable, secure, standards-aligned infrastructure and integration capabilities that support the firm’s long-term technology strategy. The role owns and operates the Architecture Review Board (ARB) and provides clear technology architecture guidance, standards, and partner/technology recommendations to ensure solutions are supportable, compliant, and built for scale. This role is expected to directly enable delivery across multiple Technology OKRs by translating strategy into executable architecture decisions, delivery-ready designs, and measurable outcomes, while maintaining transparency of progress, risks, and dependencies through standard delivery governance practices.

Requirements

Senior-level experience in technology architecture across infrastructure, cloud, network, identity, and integration domains, producing scalable and supportable designs.
Experience building and operating an architecture governance forum (e.g., ARB) that balances delivery speed with risk reduction and supportability.
Demonstrated ability to define and enforce technology standards, patterns, diagrams, and repository practices.
Proven capability assessing and guiding partner/technology selection based on standards alignment, security/risk, resiliency, and operational support model readiness.
Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with Technology Integration and Cybersecurity Engineering & Risk Management to deliver consolidated, secure, standards-aligned outcomes.
Ability to partner with the Technology PMO and align work to PMO oversight practices, including consistent project tracking and status visibility in Asana.

Responsibilities

Partner with Service Owners to Design and Deliver Strategy-Aligned Capabilities: Partner with I&O Service Owners to translate service roadmaps and operational priorities into architecture designs and delivery plans aligned to technology strategy and standards. Provide early engagement and architectural guidance during intake to reduce rework and accelerate delivery outcomes. Coordinate cross-domain architecture alignment across Cloud, Systems, Network, Identity, Infrastructure Protection Operations, Security/Risk, and relevant application teams when designs introduce dependencies or shared impact.
Formal Partnership with Technology Integration (M&A and Consolidation): Partner with Technology Integration to ensure consolidation of acquired companies into Focus standards and footprint is guided by sound architecture decisions, reusable integration patterns, and supportable designs. Provide architecture direction and design governance for integration-driven initiatives, ensuring migration and consolidation decisions align to defined platform standards and minimize operational risk and rework. Contribute standards, reference designs, and documented decisions to support repeatable integration motions and reduce variability in technology onboarding and consolidation outcomes.
Formal Partnership with Cybersecurity Engineering & Risk Management: Partner with Cybersecurity Engineering & Risk Management to ensure security-by-design requirements are embedded into technology architecture standards, patterns, and ARB decision-making. Ensure designs requiring security, risk, compliance, and resiliency/DR review receive appropriate cross-domain assessment as part of ARB governance and documented decisions.
Formal Partnership with Technology PMO (Launch Enablement, Oversight & Reporting): Partner with the Technology PMO to facilitate launch readiness for approved initiatives by aligning scope, milestones, dependencies, and governance expectations to PMO oversight and internal delivery standards. Ensure architecture-led initiatives are established and maintained in Asana (PMO’s primary project and task management platform) to support consistent planning, ownership clarity, and stakeholder reporting. Support PMO-led reporting cadences by providing timely architecture inputs on progress, risks, dependencies, and ARB decisions/conditions so project status reflects accurate decision readiness and execution posture.
Own and Operate the Architecture Review Board (ARB): Own and operate the ARB as a collaborative governance forum to ensure significant technology decisions are aligned, secure, scalable, and supportable. Ensure ARB remains an enablement mechanism (time-boxed, outcome-focused, early engagement) and not a delivery bottleneck. Establish and maintain ARB intake requirements and decision transparency (minutes, decisions, rationale, conditions, and assigned follow-ups).
Technology Architecture Standards, Patterns, and Reference Designs: Define and maintain technology architecture standards, reusable patterns, and reference architectures for infrastructure and integration solutions (including required diagramming and repository practices). Maintain a centralized architecture repository (standards, patterns, diagrams, and decision logs) to enable consistency and repeatability. Govern architecture exceptions through documented review, approval/rejection, and explicit risk acceptance where appropriate. Develop, maintain, and govern technology architecture policies that drive adherence to approved standards, patterns, and reference designs including defining compliance expectations, monitoring/validating adherence, and managing exceptions through documented ARB review, decisions, and assigned remediation actions.
Partner and Technology Guidance (Selection, Fit, and Standards Alignment): Provide guidance and standards on partners and technologies by evaluating options against architecture standards, security/risk requirements, resiliency expectations, and operational supportability. Drive consistency in technology selection decisions for in-scope initiatives (e.g., new platforms, vendors, or technologies impacting infrastructure) through ARB review and documented rationale.
Delivery Enablement and Operational Readiness Alignment: Position technology architecture governance within the delivery lifecycle: Demand Intake → Solutions Review → ARB → Implementation Review → Operational Readiness. Ensure changes with material architecture impact receive ARB review prior to implementation and that ARB conditions are closed before production impact. Produce/require architecture outputs needed for successful execution: design packages, architecture risk logs, and final design sign-off aligned to ARB decisions.
Resiliency and DR Alignment: Ensure DR/resiliency design patterns and standards are defined and reviewed via ARB; contribute architecture content as required to the enterprise DR plan governed by Systems.