VP, Architecture

Accountabilities:

• • Own the enterprise architecture strategy, consolidating diverse technology conventions into unified standards, reference architectures, playbooks, and reusable patterns.
  • Define, publish, maintain, and evolve NorthStar technical principles covering front-end frameworks, backend services, authentication, data platforms, CI/CD, AI tooling, and other enterprise capabilities.
  • Lead enterprise-level technology decisions, establish clear technical rationale, and drive consistent adoption across engineering teams.
  • Promote shared component libraries, common architectural patterns, and consistent engineering practices across products and business units.
  • Build, lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing enterprise architecture team responsible for cross-cutting and enterprise-wide initiatives.
  • Lead the broader architect guild embedded within engineering, establishing its charter, strengthening capabilities, aligning priorities, and preserving appropriate team autonomy.
  • Establish and operate a federated architecture governance model that balances local ownership with enterprise-wide consistency.
  • Define architecture career paths, expectations, development plans, and standards to strengthen the organization’s technical leadership bench.
  • Design and operate a two-tier architecture review process covering product-level reviews and enterprise-level architectural decisions.
  • Establish and chair an architecture council involving enterprise, embedded, and technology operations architects to resolve cross-functional and enterprise-scope decisions.
  • Integrate architecture governance into quarterly planning, including review triggers, standardized documentation, decision paths, and escalation mechanisms.
  • Maintain transparent, centralized architecture records, including Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), to make technical rationale discoverable and reusable.
  • Partner with engineering, infrastructure, TechOps, security, and other technology leaders to ensure architectural decisions are secure, practical, scalable, and operationally viable.
  • Provide executive leadership with clear insight into architectural decisions, technical risks, standards adoption, and transformation priorities.
  • Influence engineering teams through technical credibility, clarity, collaboration, and pragmatic decision-making rather than relying solely on formal authority.
  • Drive modernization and transformation initiatives while balancing engineering efficiency, business growth, delivery speed, technical quality, and long-term maintainability.
  • Champion AI-assisted development tools and agentic engineering workflows as part of the organization’s evolving technology strategy.

  Requirements

  • 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering and technical architecture.
  • 5+ years of experience in a VP, Senior Director, or equivalent architecture leadership position with enterprise-wide responsibility.
  • Proven success leading and developing architecture teams and influencing large engineering organizations toward consistent standards and practices.
  • Deep hands-on expertise in modern application architecture, including front-end frameworks such as React, backend technologies such as Node.js or Java, and API design.
  • Strong experience with major cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
  • Experience with modern data platforms such as Databricks or Snowflake and lakehouse/medallion data architecture.
  • Demonstrated experience selecting and standardizing enterprise capabilities such as CIAM and authentication solutions, SSO, CI/CD platforms, DORA instrumentation, and AI/LLM tooling.
  • Proven ability to establish architecture review processes, governance councils, decision frameworks, and ADR practices in complex, multi-team environments.
  • Experience defining and implementing architecture strategies across multi-entity or post-acquisition organizations where consolidation and consistency are critical.
  • Strong experience leading organizational and technology transformation, particularly within private-equity-backed or high-growth environments.
  • Practical expertise with AI-assisted development tools, modern AI engineering practices, and agentic development workflows.
  • Exceptional communication, relationship-building, influencing, and executive advisory skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical topics to both technical and C-suite audiences.
  • Strong understanding of enterprise architecture, engineering efficiency, technology governance, cybersecurity, scalability, and operational excellence.
  • Experience in data-intensive or analytics-driven organizations is preferred, particularly within automotive, financial services, information services, or related sectors.
  • Strong ability to balance strategic technology direction with pragmatic implementation and delivery realities.
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline; an advanced degree is preferred.

  Benefits

  • Competitive starting salary range of $250,000–$275,000 CAD/USD per year, depending on geographic location and factors such as skills, qualifications, experience, performance, and organizational needs.
  • Remote work opportunity available across Canada.
  • Executive-level opportunity to shape enterprise architecture and long-term technology strategy.
  • Significant influence over major technology decisions spanning AI, application architecture, data, cloud, CIAM, UI technologies, and development platforms.
  • Opportunity to lead and develop both an enterprise architecture team and a broader architecture community.
  • High-visibility role partnering with senior engineering, technology, security, infrastructure, and executive stakeholders.
  • Opportunity to drive technology transformation within a growing, data-intensive organization.
  • Inclusive workplace committed to equal opportunity and a diverse workforce.
  • Reasonable accommodations available throughout the recruitment and selection process.
  • Opportunity to establish scalable architecture practices that improve engineering consistency, delivery efficiency, and business outcomes.