Executive Director, Platform Architecture
SALARY: $250k - $270k plus 30% bonu
s
LOCATION: Chicago,
ILHybrid 3 days onsite and 2 days remo
te
Looking for an Executive director of platform infrastructure. Architecture infrastructure domains cloud on premises networking compute storage observability principal architect team management container platform eks Kafka flint AWS GitOps financial services preferred Docker helm terraform networking storage observability unix linus AWS architec
ture
The Executive Director, Platform Architecture leads the Platform Architecture team, owning the technical strategy and standards for all infrastructure domains — cloud, on premises, networking, compute, storage, and observability. This is a people leadership role responsible for developing a team of principal architects and ensuring their work produces coherent, enterprise-wide platform standards rather than isolated domain exper
tise.
Define and Govern Platform Architecture St
andards
Drive Infrastructure Modernization and Cloud S
trategy
Partner Across the Org
anization
Ensure Operational
Resilience
Supervisory Respo
- nsibilitiesManages a team of principal architects and senior individual contributors across infrastructure architect
ure domains
Qua
- lifications:12+ years of experience in infrastructure, platform, or systems architecture, with at least 3 years in a people leadership or te
- am lead roleDemonstrated experience defining and governing infrastructure architecture standards across multiple domains at organiza
- tional scaleBroad, hands-on knowledge across infrastruct
- ure domains:cloud (AWS), on-premises data center, networking, compute, storage, and contain
- er platformsDeep experience with AWS architecture — VPCs, EC2, EKS, MSK, S3, IAM, KMS, Direct Connect, Transit Gateway, and secur
- ity servicesStrong working knowledge of Kubernetes — cluster architecture, workload design, multi-tenancy, networking (CNI), and operational patte
- rns at scaleExperience with Apache Kafka as enterprise streaming infrastructure — deployment, operations, and top
- ology designDemonstrated experience leading GitOps and infrastructure-as-code programs — Terraform, Helm, ArgoCD, Flux, o
- r equivalentExperience with hybrid and on-premises/cloud connectivity architecture — network design, routing,firewalling, and sec
- urity zoningAbility to lead through influence and authority — building alignment across Engineering, Security, Operations, an
- d GovernanceStrong communication skills — able to represent infrastructure strategy to executive leadership and translate architecture decisions into actionable standards for engin
eering te
- ams
PreferredExperience in financial services, particularly regulated environments (SIFMU, clearinghouse, excha
nge, or bank)
Te
- chnical SkillsCloud: AWS foundational and advanced s
- ervices — EC2,EKS, MSK, S3, VPC, IAM, KMS, Direct Connect, Transit Gatew
- ay, CloudWatchContainer platforms: Kubernetes (EKS or
- self-managed),Docker, Helm, container ne
- tworking (CNI)Streaming and processing: Apache Kafka
- , Apache FlinkGitOps and IaC: Terraform, ArgoCD, Flux, Helm, GitHub Acti
- ons or JenkinsNetworking: routing protocols, firewalling, l
- oad balancing,DNS, hybrid connectivity, network s
- ecurity zoningStorage: block, object, and file storage architecture; backup and rec
- overy patternsObservability: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk,
- or equivalentUnix/Linux environments; artifact management (Nexus
, Artifactory)
Education an
- d/or ExperienceBS degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, or a similar technical field, or equivalent practi
- cal experience.12+ years of relevant w
ork experience.
Certific
- ates or LicensesAWS Solutions Architect — Associate or Professi
onal (preferred)