Enterprise Architect – Platform & Data/AI

Derex Technologies Inc•Fort Collins, CO

2d•Onsite

About The Position

We are focused on building a lean, high-impact platform that enables B2B payments and financial workflows at scale. Our success depends on architectural clarity, platform leverage, and disciplined use of AI to improve reliability, efficiency, and partner experience. The Enterprise Architect owns the end-to-end technical architecture of the platform and ensures that platform, data, and AI capabilities evolve cohesively in support of business outcomes. This is a highly influential, hands-on role. You will work directly with the CTO, platform engineering, product, and operations to shape architectural decisions that matter — balancing speed, correctness, and long-term leverage.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or a related field (Master’s degree a plus).
10+ years of experience in software engineering, systems, or architecture roles.
Proven experience shaping enterprise or platform architecture in fintech, payments, or enterprise SaaS environments.
Strong background in cloud-native, distributed systems.
Hands-on experience integrating data and AI/ML capabilities into production systems.
Practical experience applying AI/ML to real operational or product problems.
Deep understanding of APIs, integrations, and high-throughput transaction systems.
The ability to excel in a fast-paced, startup environment and maintain momentum through change.
A pragmatic, systems-driven mindset with a strong focus on delivering measurable outcomes.
Comfort operating effectively within a lean, evolving organization and adapting as priorities shift.
Sound architectural judgment, paired with the confidence to make thoughtful tradeoffs and stand behind decisions.
Clear, effective communication that aligns technical teams with business stakeholders and organizational goals.

Nice To Haves

Experience in payments, banking, or financial infrastructure.
Exposure to fraud, risk, or compliance systems.
Cloud or architecture certifications.

Responsibilities

Own Platform & Enterprise Architecture
Define and maintain a target-state platform architecture to support a scalable, extensible, and resilient payments platform.
Establish and enforce architectural principles and guardrails that enable consistency while preserving team autonomy.
Guide architectural decisions for core payment flows, partner integrations, and shared platform services.
Identify, prioritize, and reduce architectural complexity and enterprise-level technical debt.
Ensure the architecture supports high availability, correctness, scalability, and regulatory requirements.
Drive Cloud, Reliability, and Cost Discipline
Own the cloud architecture strategy (AWS), with emphasis on resilience, observability, and cost efficiency.
Partner with Platform Engineering and SRE to ensure architecture supports operational excellence.
Drive modernization and simplification initiatives where they create measurable leverage.
Incorporate FinOps-aware design decisions into platform architecture and service patterns.
Apply AI & Intelligent Automation
Identify and drive practical AI/ML use cases that improve platform and operational outcomes, including: Payment exception handling and resolution, Anomaly detection and fraud signal identification, Intelligent routing, retries, and decisioning, Partner support and operational automation.
Define architectural patterns for AI-enabled systems, including: Data pipelines and feature readiness, Model integration and inference services, Monitoring, feedback loops, and governance.
Ensure AI capabilities are secure, explainable where required, and production-grade.
Partner with product and engineering to ensure AI is embedded into workflows — not treated as an afterthought.
Align Architecture with Business Strategy
Translate business priorities into clear architectural decisions and tradeoffs.
Act as a trusted advisor to leadership on platform investments, sequencing, and risk.
Support strategic initiatives such as new partner models, platform extensions, and regulatory changes.
Evaluate vendors, platforms, and build-vs-buy decisions through an architectural lens.
Lead Governance, Enablement, and Culture
Lead architecture reviews and provide clear, actionable guidance to engineering teams.
Establish lightweight governance that balances autonomy with architectural coherence.
Document architecture in ways that are current, practical, and useful to teams.
Mentor senior engineers and raise architectural thinking across the organization.