VP, Architecture

Job Overview Title: VP, Architecture Location: Remote – USA, Canada Reports to: Chief Technology Officer Vacancy: Existing Vacancy Impact As the VP of Architecture, you will be the driving force behind how JD Power designs, builds, and evolves its technology. By establishing clear architectural standards, a published set of NorthStar principles, and a disciplined architecture review process, you will raise engineering quality, reduce duplicated effort, and accelerate delivery across product lines. You will lead enterprise-level technology decisions—such as the choice of AI tooling, UI stack, customer identity and access management (CIAM), and data platform—and ensure those decisions are consistently adopted. Responsibilities Architectural Standards & NorthStar Principles Own Enterprise Architecture: Consolidate the disparate architectural conventions of acquired entities into a single set of enterprise standards, reference architectures, and playbooks. Publish NorthStar Principles: Define, publish, and maintain the NorthStar technical principles—covering front-end frameworks, back-end services, authentication, data platform, and CI/CD—and keep them current as technology evolves. Drive Enterprise Technology Decisions: Lead enterprise-level technology choices (e.g., AI tooling, UI stack, CIAM, data platform) with clear rationale, and ensure consistent adoption across all engineering teams. Champion Consistency & Reuse: Promote shared component libraries, common patterns, and a consistent look, feel, and engineering experience across all JD Power products. Architecture Team & Guild Leadership Lead the Enterprise Architecture Team: Build, mentor, and direct a small, high-caliber team of enterprise architects responsible for cross-cutting and enterprise-scope initiatives. Lead the Architect Guild: Lead the guild of architects embedded within engineering teams under the SVP of Engineering—setting their charter, raising their capability, and aligning their work to enterprise standards while preserving team autonomy. Operate a Federated Model: Establish a federated (hybrid) governance model that balances local team ownership of system-level decisions with enterprise consistency on cross-cutting concerns. Develop Architecture Talent: Develop architecture talent, define career paths and expectations for architects across the organization, and grow the bench of senior technical leaders. Architecture Review & Governance Establish the Review Process: Design and run a two-tier architecture review process: product-specific reviews led by embedded architects, and enterprise-level reviews led by the enterprise architecture team. Chair the Architecture Council: Stand up and lead an architecture council—comprising enterprise, embedded, and TechOps architects—to evaluate initiatives of enterprise scope and resolve cross-cutting design decisions. Integrate with Planning: Integrate architecture review into the quarterly planning cadence, with clear triggers, standardized review artifacts, and a documented path for escalation from team-level to enterprise-level review. Govern with Transparency: Centralize architecture review artifacts and decisions (e.g., ADRs) so that rationale is transparent, discoverable, and reusable across the organization. Partnership & Influence Partner Across Technology: Partner closely with the SVP of Engineering, the VP of Infrastructure, TechOps, and Security to ensure architecture decisions are practical, secure, and operable. Advise Executive Leadership: Provide executive leadership with clear visibility into key architectural decisions, technical risk, and standards adoption across the engineering organization. Lead Through Influence: Influence engineering teams toward sound architecture through clarity, credibility, and collaboration rather than mandate alone. Qualifications 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering and technical architecture. 5+ years in a VP or Sr. Director architecture leadership role with responsibility for enterprise-wide standards. Demonstrated success leading and developing teams of architects, and influencing engineering organizations toward consistent standards. Deep, hands‑on expertise across modern application architecture, including front-end frameworks (e.g., React), back-end services (e.g., Node.js, Java), and API design. Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), data platforms (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake) and medallion/lakehouse data architecture. Experience selecting and standardizing enterprise capabilities such as authentication/CIAM (e.g., Auth0, SSO), CI/CD (e.g., GitLab) with DORA instrumentation, and AI/LLM tooling. Proven success establishing architecture review processes, governance councils, and decision frameworks (e.g., ADRs) in complex, multi-team environments. Track record of defining architecture in multi‑entity or post‑acquisition environments where consolidation and consistency are required. Solid experience with company and team transformation (especially with PE backed enterprises). Strong conviction about, and practical experience with, AI‑assisted development tools and agentic engineering workflows. Exceptional communication and influence skills, with the ability to align engineering leaders and provide strategic counsel to the C‑suite. Experience operating in private equity‑backed or high‑growth environments balancing growth with engineering efficiency. Experience in data‑intensive or analytics‑driven businesses, particularly automotive, financial services, or information services sectors (preferred). Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; advanced degree preferred. Salary This position has a starting salary range of $250,000 – $275,000 CAD/USD per year. Our salary is determined by factors including relevant skills, education, qualifications, experience, performance, business or organizational needs, and geographic location. EEO Statement JD Power is committed to employing a diverse workforce. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability. Should you require accommodations during the recruitment and selection process, please reach out to [email protected]. #J-18808-Ljbffr