Chicago

Amtrak•Wilmington, DE

9d•$149,400 - $193,644•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Principal Architect is responsible for providing architecture services to ensure portfolio technology investments are in alignment with corporate goals and its ability to move towards the future in an evolving business environment. As a Digital Technology expert, this role will utilize communication, influence, guidance, and governance processes to maximize return on technology investment, and reduce time to capability, while minimizing operational costs. The Senior Principal Architect will use strategic thinking to evolve Architecture and the Business of Technology as a disciplined, data-driven, and measurable practice—producing repeatability, continuity, benchmarking, and auditability at scale. As part of the DT architecture team the Senior Principal Architect will be responsible for shaping the architecture practice itself—not just individual solutions—across a team of 20–30 architects. The role’s primary value lies in driving consistency, governance, and long-term sustainability in a regulated environment.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent combination of education, training and/or relevant experience.
Plus 9 years of relevant work experience.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent combination of education, training and/or relevant experience.
Plus 11 years of relevant work experience.
Track record of designing and implementing architecture governance frameworks that balance rigor with delivery agility.
Core competencies centered on architectural thinking, governance design, and influencing skills, combined with deep expertise in cloud, integration, data, and regulatory environments.
Strong executive communication, mentoring, risk/technical debt management, and the ability to balance rigor with agility.
Strong expertise in architectural practices: Architectural Decision Records, Build vs Buy analysis, Business Capability Maps, Value-Stream Analysis, Solution Architecture work products, Architecture Governance
Familiarity with Enterprise Architecture toolsets (LeanIX, Ardoq, Orbus, etc.) and low-code platforms (ex: Microsoft Power Automate) to create architecture governance workflows and data models

Responsibilities

Set up the architectural vision for core architecture practice capabilities and aligning patterns to allow for consistency and reuse
Define enterprise principles, patterns and guidance that help in technology data capabilities, platforms and infrastructure, how applications are built, deployed, and maintained to align with strategic needs and maximizing technology investments
Provide Oversight and Governance processes for establishing and maintaining enterprise architecture standards, patterns, and decision frameworks (ADR), while ensuring compliance without slowing delivery.
Define and maintain the enterprise architecture standards library, including approved solution patterns, reference architectures, and anti-patterns, ensuring alignment with industry best practices and regulatory obligations.
Operate and continuously improve the architecture review process—Design Reviews, Architecture Review Board (ARB) participation, and lightweight fitness function checks—ensuring governance is an enabler rather than a bottleneck.
Drive adoption of architecture tooling, reusable patterns, and alignment with Agile/SAFe to improve delivery efficiency and reuse.
Provide practice leadership, acting as a mentor and thought leader, elevating architect capability, defining role clarity, and influencing outcomes through credibility rather than hierarchy and using influence rather than authority
Effectively communicate to group leadership, management and teams throughout the company