Sr. Dir. Digital Foundations Architecture

<strong>Job Summary<br></strong>The Sr. Director, Digital Foundations Architecture provides enterprise architecture leadership for the foundational technology capabilities on which Amtrak’s digital services depend. The role aligns infrastructure strategy and investment with corporate goals while advancing a resilient, automated, observable, secure, and supportable technology foundation. Through architecture governance, technical leadership, engineering enablement, and clear decision guidance, this senior Digital Technology leader accelerates delivery, maximizes return on technology investment, and reduces operational cost and risk. <br>The Sr. Director defines and communicates current, transitional, and target-state architectures and roadmaps for advanced networking and connectivity, cloud infrastructure and IaaS, compute, infrastructure-as-code and automation, observability and resilience, service delivery, and technology operations. The role establishes reusable patterns and reference architectures and partners with Platform, Cybersecurity, Data, Engineering, Product, and Operations teams to translate enterprise strategy into capabilities. As an Enterprise Architect and people leader, the Sr. Director develops architecture talent, strengthens technical depth, and connects strategic direction to practical engineering and operational outcomes. The successful candidate combines enterprise architecture leadership with demonstrated hands-on experience designing and operating large, complex infrastructure environments in which reliability, operational readiness, automation, lifecycle management, and customer service are as important as technology selection.<br>As a senior people leader they will provide direction and development of leaders and teams to move architecture and business objectives forward.<br><strong>Essential Functions<br></strong><ul> <li>Own and communicate the architectural vision for core enterprise infrastructure capabilities, establishing patterns and reference architectures that improve consistency, reuse, resilience, and operational supportability. <br> </li> <li>Define and govern current, transitional, and target-state architecture across advanced networking and connectivity, hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure, IaaS, compute, data center and edge infrastructure, infrastructure automation, observability, resilience, service delivery, and technology operations. <br> </li> <li>Govern and direct enterprise principles, patterns standards and guidance for how infrastructure is designed, provisioned, connected, deployed, monitored, operated, maintained, recovered, and retired. <br> </li> <li>Define and govern the infrastructure architecture interface with the Security domain. Cybersecurity and physical security policy, architecture, risk, and control ownership remain with their respective partner domains; Digital Foundations Architecture is accountable for translating those requirements into infrastructure patterns and designs and validating that required controls are implemented. <br> </li> <li><strong>Drive and produce infrastructure-as-code and automation </strong>as default delivery mechanisms where practical, including reusable modules, automated provisioning, configuration management, policy enforcement, testing, and continuous delivery practices. <br> </li> <li>Establish architecture expectations for observability, telemetry, capacity, performance, high availability, disaster recovery, lifecycle management, and operational readiness so foundational services can be measured, supported, and recovered. <br> </li> <li>Ensure the reference architectures, standards, and guidelines of the organization's technology is safe, secure, stable and compliant with industry standards. <br> </li> <li>Champion organizational design, enterprise strategy, innovation leadership for the architecture practice <br> </li> <li>Lead and mentor a team of architects, providing guidance and fostering a culture of excellence. <br> </li> <li>Create and provide senior leadership steering of strategic roadmaps and comprehensive transition plans that show how foundational technology will evolve to support business strategy over time and how initiatives should be prioritized by value, risk, resilience, technical debt, and dependencies. <br> </li> <li>Guide Investment Decisions Aligning technology plans and investments to business vision and strategy that is necessary to ensure we are building the right things.] <br> </li> <li>Provide senior leadership steering in the design, governance, and oversight for implementing robust, scalable, and efficient architectural solutions for domain business problems. <br> </li></ul><strong>Domain Scope<br></strong><ul> <li><strong>Advanced Networking & Connectivity: </strong>enterprise LAN/WAN, SD-WAN, wireless, cloud networking, edge, segmentation, routing/switching, resilient connectivity, and network automation. <br> </li> <li><strong>Cloud & Compute Foundations:</strong> IaaS, landing-zone foundations, virtual networking, hybrid connectivity, compute, data center, edge, and lifecycle architecture. <br> </li> <li><strong>Infrastructure Automation:</strong> infrastructure-as-code, configuration automation, reusable modules, automated provisioning, policy controls, and CI/CD integration. <br> </li> <li><strong>Service Delivery & Operations:</strong> operational readiness, service ownership, monitoring, incident/problem/change considerations, production stability, supportability, lifecycle, capacity, and recovery. <br> </li> <li><strong>Observability, Reliability & Resilience:</strong> telemetry, service health, high availability, disaster recovery, dependency visibility, performance and capacity architecture. <br> </li></ul><strong>Minimum Qualifications<br></strong><ul> <li>Bachelor’s degree in computer science, data and intelligence or related field with 15+ year’s relevant architecture or technology experience or equivalent work experience. <br> </li> <li>Experience creating significant business value realization with $1B+ or more enterprises as an architect providing vision and choosing platforms moving organizations forward and scaled for expanding future initiatives. <br> </li> <li>11+ years of relevant technical and business managerial experience with 2 to 3 years leading an Architecture Practice area. <br> </li> <li>Requires leadership experience in managing architecture teams and influencing executive level management and key stakeholders. <br> </li> <li>Requires demonstrated ability to manage multiple architecture engagement and effectively plan and use staff to ensure the architecture view. <br> </li> <li>Previous experience shaping enterprise architecture vision and leading an org-wide transformation and culture shift to that vision <br> </li> <li>Must possess strong communication and interpersonal skills, work well with others in an integrated team environment, and must be self-motivated. <br> </li> <li>Must possess a mastery of business acumen <br> </li> <li>Relationship building and collaboration skills across diverse and matrixed stakeholders and customers. <br> </li> <li>Ability to surface, prioritize, and balance priorities across multiple stakeholders. <br> </li> <li>Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills, including experience leveraging data to inform decision-making. <br> </li></ul><strong>Preferred Qualifications<br></strong><ul> <li>Master’s degree in business engineering, computer science, information systems, or a related field, particularly where the program emphasizes enterprise technology strategy, organizational leadership, or complex systems. <br> </li> <li><strong>Critical infrastructure experience or experience supporting large, distributed, mission-critical enterprises. </strong> <br> </li> <li><strong>Experience applying enterprise networking, AWS and/or Azure infrastructure, infrastructure-as-code, observability, service management, and reliability practices in large-scale, hybrid, and 24x7 operational environments.</strong> <br> </li> <li><strong>Experience in Telecom, Utilities, Oil & Gas or other Critical Infrastructure Industries.</strong> <br> </li> <li>Experience with governance, risk, regulatory and compliance. <br> </li> <li><strong>Experience spanning multiple architecture domains, including business, application/solution, technical/infrastructure, platform, security, and information/data architecture. </strong> <br> </li> <li>Experience with modern engineering and delivery practices such as Git-based workflows, CI/CD, reusable infrastructure modules, automated testing and policy controls, and configuration management. <br> </li></ul><strong>Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities<br></strong><ul> <li>Bachelor’s degree or equivalent applied experience. <br> </li> <li>15+ years’ experience in relevant industry experience <br> </li> <li>11+ years in managing talent. <br> </li> <li>Experience managing teams. <br> </li> <li>Strong understanding of enterprise architecture best practices, value methodology, reference architectures, reusable patterns, standards, and roadmaps. <br> </li> <li>Deep knowledge of how networking, cloud and hybrid infrastructure, compute, data center and edge services, automation, observability, resilience, recovery, service delivery, and technology operations interact as an enterprise foundation. <br> </li> <li>Working knowledge of cybersecurity architecture and controls sufficient to embed security requirements into infrastructure designs and partner effectively with the Security domain. <br> </li> <li>Ability to move comfortably between strategic target-state discussions, detailed technical tradeoffs, delivery sequencing, and operational readiness concerns. <br> </li></ul><strong>Environmental Conditions/Physical Demands<br></strong>The salary/hourly range is $206,200.00 – $267,192.00. Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, certifications, etc. Depending on an employee’s assigned worksite or location, Amtrak may consider a geo-pay differential to be applied to the employee’s base salary. Amtrak may offer additional incentive and pay programs to recognize and reward our employees, including a short-term incentive bonus based upon factors such as individual and company performance that is commensurate with the level of the position. <br><strong>Health and Wellbeing<br></strong><strong>Financial and Retirement<br></strong><strong>Work and Family Life Support<br></strong>Health, Dental, and Vision Insurance<br>401K with Employer Match<br>Generous Paid Time Off <br>Wellness Programs<br>Railroad Retirement Benefits<br>Paid Caregiving Days and Backup Care<br>Health Savings Account<br>Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness<br>Fertility and Family Building Benefits<br>No-cost Personal Health Advocate<br>Student Loan Assistance<br>Adoption and Surrogacy Assistance<br>Medical Plan Opt-out Credit<br>Tuition and Education Reimbursement<br>Paid Family Leave<br> <br>Life Insurance<br>Rail Pass Privileges<br> <br>Short- and Long-term Disability Insurance<br>Employee Assistance Program<br> <br>No-cost Financial Advisor Sessions<br>Commuter and Flexible Spending Accounts<br>Learn more about our benefits offerings here.<br><br><br><br><br>

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