Enterprise Architect

Kapitus•Arlington, VA

20d•$117,800 - $189,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Kapitus is creating its first dedicated Enterprise Architect role to define and guide the technology foundation supporting its lending business. This is a build-and-shape position responsible for establishing the target-state architecture across the lending lifecycle, creating an architecture practice, and sequencing modernization to support business growth. The role partners closely with engineering, product, data, AI, and security leaders, and its decisions affect platforms used to originate, decision, fund, and service financing. The Enterprise Architect will maintain a trusted, current architecture map of the end-to-end lending process and its systems, data, integrations, and owners. The role will define the modernization roadmap, establish canonical data models and vendor-adapter standards for decisioning, and ensure that data, analytics, reporting, and machine-learning capabilities fit coherently within enterprise architecture. It will also shape API and eventing standards and middleware, embed security and resilience into system designs, and create lightweight architecture governance through principles, decision records, design reviews, and build-versus-buy and total-cost-of-ownership practices. The position requires close collaboration rather than top-down direction: the architect will involve stakeholders in decisions, communicate technical choices to executives and engineers, support responsible AI standards, and mentor engineering managers and technical leads. The job posting describes the role as 100% remote for candidates residing in Virginia. Candidates residing in Maryland or Washington, DC may apply but must be willing to work a hybrid schedule from the Arlington, Virginia office. Remote consideration is limited to states where Kapitus or a subsidiary has an established physical presence.

Requirements

At least 10 years of experience in software engineering and architecture, including several years as an enterprise or solution architect owning complex, high-volume transactional systems end to end.
Deep AWS cloud-native architecture experience, including containers, serverless, event-driven patterns, API management, relational and NoSQL data stores, and related security and cost controls.
Strong data and analytics architecture experience, including canonical and semantic models, warehouse and lakehouse patterns, operational-versus-analytical data separation, integration and adapter patterns, and work across data and engineering teams.
Experience modernizing legacy systems in production, including strangler and incremental-migration approaches that avoid big-bang risk.
Security- and compliance-by-design instincts; regulated-industry experience such as lending, fintech, banking, or insurance is desirable.
Ability to influence cross-functionally, build trust across product and engineering, and communicate clearly to executive and technical audiences.
Pragmatic, outcome-first approach: sequence work for business value, make decisions when evidence is sufficient, and document the rationale.

Nice To Haves

Salesforce platform architecture at scale and experience with a modern lending or core-banking platform such as Mambu.
Runtime and framework modernization, such as a PHP major-version uplift, and microservice decomposition of a monolith.
Experience with credit-decisioning ecosystems and bureau or data vendors such as Experian, LexisNexis, Plaid, and cash-flow providers, as well as model deployment and model-risk governance.
Familiarity with AI-assisted development tooling and guardrails and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform or OpenTofu.
Use of a recognized architecture framework such as TOGAF.

Responsibilities

Create and maintain a current, organization-wide architecture map of the lending lifecycle, including systems, data stores, integrations, and owners.
Define the target-state architecture and sequence a modernization roadmap, including platform runtime uplift, decoupling decisioning from the core, movement toward a modern lending core, and safer environments and infrastructure-as-code.
Align architecture initiatives with the product roadmap and business outcomes.
Establish Kapitus-owned canonical data models for decisioning inputs, including credit bureau, cash-flow, and KYB data, and define vendor-adapter standards that support vendor flexibility, failover, and champion-challenger testing.
Partner with the Chief Data and AI Officer’s organization to integrate the data platform, analytics and reporting products, decisioning-data pipelines, and machine-learning and model-deployment lifecycle into enterprise architecture.
Maintain clear operational-versus-analytical data boundaries, ownership, and contracts across data, engineering, and product teams.
Lead API and event-driven architecture, including REST, webhooks, event buses, partner API contracts, and middleware connecting Salesforce, the core platform, AWS services, and third parties.
Design for authentication, secrets management, least privilege, audit logging, disaster recovery, high availability, and observability in a regulated-lending context.
Establish and operate lightweight architecture governance, including principles, architecture decision records, design reviews, and build-versus-buy and total-cost-of-ownership discipline.
Involve product, engineering, data and AI, and security stakeholders in architecture decisions and translate technical choices into clear business and engineering guidance.
Develop guardrails and standards for AI-assisted development and model deployment and governance in partnership with data and security teams.
Mentor engineering managers and technical leads and strengthen architectural thinking across teams.

Benefits

Competitive salary range of $117,800–$189,000 annually; final salary depends on factors including location, skills, and experience.
Annual incentive compensation eligibility of up to 10%.
Medical, dental, and employer-paid vision plans through UnitedHealthcare, with multiple coverage levels.
Flexible Spending Account for eligible healthcare and dependent-care expenses.
Employer-sponsored Lifestyle Spending Account for eligible physical, mental, and financial well-being expenses.
Company-paid basic short-term and long-term disability insurance and vision insurance.
Voluntary supplemental life insurance and enhanced short- and long-term disability coverage; accident and hospitalization insurance options.
Company-paid maternity and parental leave beyond state-mandated policies.
Pre-tax commuter and parking benefits.
LifeBalance membership and discounts, including pet and car insurance discounts, financial services, and relaxation and stress-management tools.
Plum Benefits discounts on shows, travel, car rentals, and other offerings.
Tuition reimbursement of up to $5,000 annually, plus relevant conference and career-development opportunities.
Travel reimbursement for work-related travel.
Paid time off and sick time.
401(k) plan through Fidelity with a 25% match on employee contributions, up to 6% of annual salary.