Enterprise Software Architect

Trupanion•Seattle, WA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Enterprise Software Architect is accountable for defining, evolving, and communicating the enterprise’s target-state architecture and technology strategy. This role ensures that software systems, data, platforms, and integration patterns are designed to scale, remain secure, and enable long-term business agility. The Enterprise Architect connects business strategy to technical execution, balancing near-term delivery with long-term architectural health. This role operates at the intersection of strategy, execution, and influence. Success requires deep technical credibility, strong business acumen, and the ability to guide senior technical leaders and executives toward sound, pragmatic technology decisions. This architecture role is a hands-on and strategic leadership position, accountable for defining the enterprise future state, ensuring positive business outcomes enabled by that future state, and holding accountability for ensuring implementation aligns with target-state architecture. In doing so, the Enterprise Software Architect demonstrates a clear preference to buy and integrate commercially available or partner-provided solutions over building bespoke systems, making build decisions intentionally and only where they create differentiated business value.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience
7+ years of experience in software engineering, systems design, or architecture roles
3+ years of experience operating at an enterprise or platform-wide architecture level
Demonstrated experience defining target-state architectures and technology roadmaps
Strong experience in cloud-based, distributed, and modern software architectures
Experience working in agile and product-oriented delivery environments
Proven ability to influence senior technical leaders and executives
Experience modernizing complex, mission-critical systems
Strong understanding of security, data architecture, and integration patterns
Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive clarity in complex environments
Pragmatic mindset focused on outcomes rather than theoretical perfection

Responsibilities

Define and continuously evolve enterprise target-state architectures across application, data, integration, infrastructure, and security domains
Develop and maintain multi-year architecture roadmaps that balance innovation, cost, risk, and delivery velocity
Translate business strategy into actionable architectural direction for product and platform teams
Ensure architectural decisions prioritize simplicity, scalability, resilience, and security
Leads the selection of new application, data, and infrastructure technologies and validates that selection aligns to target architecture and overall technology direction
Establish, own, and evolve enterprise architecture standards, principles, patterns, and reference architectures
Lead architecture reviews to ensure alignment with target-state direction while avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy
Partner with engineering leadership to ensure governance is enabling rather than blocking delivery
Promote consistent adoption of standards while allowing for pragmatic, data-driven exceptions
Document and evangelize utilization of AI technologies such as Codex, Claude, or other AI to to support Architectural practices
Ensure usage of AI in support of architectural deliverables meets governance and compliance considerations
Collaborate closely with Solution Architects, Principal Engineers, and Engineering Teams to align designs with enterprise strategy
Provide architectural guidance during initiative inception, major design decisions, and complex trade-off discussions
Support teams in designing cloud-native, event-driven, and API-first solutions where appropriate
Ensure architectural decisions consider operational excellence, observability, and supportability
Assess legacy systems and define clear modernization and migration strategies
Identify and prioritize opportunities to reduce architectural risk, duplication, and long-term cost
Guide incremental modernization efforts that minimize disruption while advancing target-state goals
Research and evaluate emerging technologies, platforms, and industry trends
Provides oversight to ensure Enterprise Architecture practices are maintained and continuously improved
Produce clear architecture decision records, whitepapers, and recommendations to support executive decision-making
Ensure new technology adoption aligns with enterprise standards, skills, and long-term strategy
Clearly communicate architectural intent, trade-offs, and decisions to technical and non-technical audiences, including executive leadership
Champion the value of enterprise architecture as a business enabler, not just a technical function
Facilitate alignment across teams, departments, and portfolios in a complex, fast-moving organization
Communicates technology decisions and standards to the organization, driving understanding and appreciation for the value of architecture governance and standards
Define and track architecture health metrics (e.g., technical debt, standard adoption, system fitness)
Measure and communicate the impact and value of enterprise architecture initiatives
Continuously improve architecture practices, tooling, and ways of working
Mentor and coach Solution Architects and senior engineers
Help grow architectural thinking across engineering teams
Lead by example, modeling strong technical judgment, collaboration, and accountability
Directly manage and develop a small team of architects (1–3 direct reports), setting clear expectations, providing feedback, and supporting career growth
Partner with business and technology leaders to ensure architecture enables current and future needs
Provide architectural insight for M&A, vendor selection, and major investment decisions
Contribute to budgeting, forecasting, and cost optimization discussions for technology initiatives