Lead IT Architect

McKesson•Columbus, OH

4d•$150,800 - $251,300

About The Position

The Lead IT Architect defines and drives technology strategy, architectural direction, AI-enabled engineering transformation, and solution design across a Value Stream and its Agile Release Train (ART). The role owns the ART’s architectural runway, providing technical direction, architecture patterns, technical enablers, architectural context, and future-state designs so teams can deliver scalable, secure, resilient, and maintainable solutions. Working with Engineering, Product Management, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Delivery Leadership, Shared Services, and the CoverMyMeds AI Enablement team, the architect identifies technology opportunities, modernization initiatives, architectural risks, dependencies, and emerging engineering practices before they affect delivery. The role leads practical adoption of AI-assisted and agentic engineering, guides solution design and governance, and maintains architectural documentation and knowledge for applications and platforms in the Value Stream. The position also ensures that designs align with enterprise standards and address security, privacy, regulatory, compliance, and operational requirements. It provides technical leadership and mentorship across teams without direct managerial authority, and promotes continuous improvement, engineering excellence, platform modernization, and effective Agile delivery.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline; the posting also states a degree or equivalent is required.
10+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, enterprise architecture, or related technology disciplines, with fewer years potentially required for relevant Master's or Doctorate qualifications.
5+ years in a Lead Architect, Principal Architect, Solution Architect, or equivalent technical-leadership role.
Demonstrated experience owning architecture across multiple applications, products, or Agile engineering teams.
Experience establishing architectural roadmaps and technical direction in Agile, Scrum, or SAFe delivery environments.
Experience designing enterprise solutions using Microsoft Azure or a comparable cloud platform, including cloud-native or distributed architectures, APIs, microservices, event-driven systems, and enterprise integrations.
Experience with architecture governance and documentation, including review processes, ADRs, technical diagrams, roadmaps, or implementation-ready architecture artifacts.
Experience applying DevOps, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, or related modern engineering practices to enterprise software delivery.
Experience designing systems subject to security, privacy, or regulatory requirements, including healthcare or other regulated data environments.
Demonstrated experience introducing or supporting AI-assisted software engineering, engineering-productivity initiatives, or agentic engineering practices.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting an Agile Release Train or Value Stream in a SAFe environment.
Experience with Microsoft Azure, GitHub, Jira, Microsoft Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Claude, Lucidchart, or comparable technologies.
Experience with architecture-as-code, documentation-as-code, policy-as-code, or automated architecture validation.
Experience developing enterprise architecture standards, reusable patterns, governance models, or engineering best practices.
Experience in healthcare technology or another highly regulated industry.
Relevant architecture, cloud, or Agile certifications such as TOGAF, SAFe, Scrum, or Microsoft Azure credentials.

Responsibilities

Plan and maintain the architectural runway for the ART, defining solution approaches, patterns, dependencies, technical enablers, and future-state designs.
Partner with Product Management, Engineering Leadership, and Enterprise Architecture to establish architectural paths for upcoming features, epics, and initiatives.
Develop technology and architecture roadmaps that balance Value Stream objectives, scalability, technical debt, reliability, security, compliance, and delivery velocity.
Identify capability gaps, modernization opportunities, architectural risks, and cross-team dependencies before they impede delivery.
Set architectural direction across multiple teams and applications and provide the guidance, standards, decisions, artifacts, and enablers required for delivery.
Partner with the CoverMyMeds AI Enablement team to evaluate and operationalize AI-assisted software delivery practices across the ART.
Lead AI adoption within the Value Stream, including approved capabilities, tools, patterns, engineering practices, and adoption roadmaps.
Identify and implement AI-enabled opportunities in productivity, quality, documentation, testing, knowledge management, governance, operations, and delivery effectiveness.
Increase adoption of AI-assisted development tools and workflows, including Microsoft Copilot, Claude, GitHub Copilot, and future enterprise-supported solutions.
Maintain architectural context, Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), repository standards, architecture artifacts, and knowledge-management practices that support agentic engineering.
Drive architecture-as-code, AI-assisted documentation, automated architecture validation, and agent-enabled engineering workflows.
Create and maintain solution designs and architecture artifacts such as context, solution, integration, deployment, sequence, and data-flow diagrams, domain models, reference architectures, and implementation guidance.
Translate business and product objectives into actionable technical designs; evaluate alternatives and recommend solutions based on business, operational, compliance, security, and technical tradeoffs.
Establish reusable architecture patterns and current-state and future-state views to support delivery, portfolio planning, and modernization.
Participate in Agile, Scrum, and SAFe planning and delivery, ensuring architectural priorities and technical enablers are represented in backlogs and plans.
Guide decomposition of large initiatives into implementable capabilities, features, and architectural enablers.
Mentor engineers and technical leaders, influence technical decisions across teams, and foster architectural thinking, engineering excellence, continuous learning, and innovation.
Represent the ART in Architecture Review Board (ARB) governance, presenting and defending solution designs, decisions, strategies, and exception requests.
Operationalize enterprise standards, reference architectures, guardrails, and strategic platform direction; promote adherence to approved patterns and platforms.
Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Security, Platform Engineering, Compliance, Infrastructure, Cloud Operations, Developer Experience, AI Enablement, and other shared-service organizations.
Track and communicate architectural risks, technical debt, modernization opportunities, technology decisions, dependencies, and enterprise or platform impacts.
Own the ART architecture repository and maintain accurate, discoverable documentation for applications and platforms, including boundaries, integrations, dependencies, data flows, technology choices, constraints, and decision history.
Establish documentation standards and review processes that preserve architecture knowledge and make it accessible to engineers, leaders, stakeholders, and AI-assisted tools.
Ensure designs address security, privacy, audit, regulatory, and compliance requirements, including appropriate handling of PHI, PII, and other sensitive data.
Incorporate HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC, SOX, and related compliance requirements into architectural decisions and partner with Security, Risk, Compliance, and Enterprise Architecture to mitigate risks.
Integrate security, resiliency, observability, and compliance into runway planning and solution design, promoting secure-by-design and compliance-by-design practices.
Design cloud-native architectures using Azure and modern platform services, and promote CoverMyMeds standards for APIs, integrations, distributed systems, platforms, observability, resiliency, scalability, security, and operations.
Evaluate technology investments and modernization initiatives that improve reliability, maintainability, scalability, and engineering effectiveness.