Director, Digital Consulting | Enterprise Architecture

Job description

 --- Who is **Trace3**? Trace3 is a leading Transformative IT Authority, providing unique technology solutions and consulting services to our clients. Equipped with elite engineering and dynamic innovation, we empower IT executives and their organizations to achieve competitive advantage through a process of Integrate, Automate, Innovate. Our culture at Trace3 embodies the spirit of a startup with the advantage of a scalable business. Employees can grow their career and have fun while doing it! Trace3 is headquartered in Irvine, California. We employ more than 1,200 people all over the United States. Our major field office locations include Denver, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, Lexington, Los Angeles, Louisville, Texas, San Francisco. **Ready to discover the possibilities that live in technology?** **Come Join Us!** **Street-Smart** **- *Thriving in Dynamic Times*** We are flexible and resilient in a fast-changing environment. We continuously innovate and drive constructive change while keeping a focus on the “big picture.” We exercise sound business judgment in making high-quality decisions in a timely and cost-effective manner. We are highly creative and can dig deep within ourselves to find positive solutions to different problems. **Juice - *The “Stuff” it takes to be a Needle Mover*** We get things done and drive results. We lead without a title, empowering others through a can-do attitude. We look forward to the goal, mentally mapping out every checkpoint on the pathway to success, and visualizing what the final destination looks and feels like. **Teamwork - *Humble, Hungry and Smart*** We are humble individuals who understand how our job impacts the company's mission. We treat others with respect, admit mistakes, give credit where it’s due and demonstrate transparency. We “bring the weather” by exhibiting positive leadership and solution-focused thinking. We hug people in their trials, struggles, and failures – not just their success. We appreciate the individuality of the people around us. --- **ABOUT THE ROLE:** Trace3 is expanding its team of Enterprise Architecture leaders across complementary specialties; successful candidates may be very deep in one primary domain, such as Security, Cloud, Data, AI, Platform Engineering, Resilience, or Enterprise Applications, while demonstrating the judgment and curiosity to stretch across adjacent domains. In addition to driving account growth, executive relationships, and delivery quality, this Director serves as a technical-continuity owner across the account and as part of a broader architecture bench that collectively covers Trace3’s key domains. The role connects architecture and technology decisions to business strategy and funded outcomes, ensures solution coherence across Cloud, Data, AI, Security, and related domains, and gives Trace3 credibility with CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, architects, and engineering teams. This is a hands-on leadership role: the Director remains close enough to the work to review infrastructure-as-code, platform configurations, and engineering designs directly, stabilize accounts under pressure, and lead through influence, technical judgment, and commercial awareness. **WHAT YOU'LL DO:** - Provide the account's architecture point of view: reference architectures, target-state design, and technology decisions tied to business cases. - Ensure multi-domain solution coherence and non-functional integrity across engagements. - Originate and shape technically credible pursuits and multi-domain programs. - Elevate Trace3's standing with technical executives and engineering stakeholders. - Operate as part of a complementary Enterprise Architecture team, bringing a distinctive domain spike while collaborating with other architect sub-types to provide full-stack coverage across Trace3’s priority domains. - Serve as the named Digital Account Lead for assigned flagship and enterprise accounts when designated, or as the senior architecture lead within another Director's account strategy and governance model when a different Digital Account Lead owns the overall client outcome. - Build and maintain the account strategy, executive relationship plan, stakeholder and initiative maps, engagement history, account roadmap, opportunity priorities, and cross-domain expansion thesis. - Originate, qualify, shape, and advance pursuits that align to client priorities, Trace3's right-to-win, and available delivery capabilities. - Orchestrate account, sales, domain, practice, business-unit, partner, and delivery leaders around one integrated account strategy and client experience. - Maintain sufficient proximity to every active engagement to independently understand delivery health, client sentiment, scope, financial position, major dependencies, risks, solution integrity, and progress toward the business case. - Bring in peer Directors and specialists when another domain is required. On accounts led by another Director, operate as the domain lead within the named Digital Account Lead's account strategy and governance model. **Enterprise Architecture and Technical Leadership** - Own account-level architecture continuity: current-state assessment, target-state and reference architectures, technology selection, and non-functional requirements across the Director's primary domain and adjacent Trace3 domains, including Cloud, Data, AI, Security, Platform Engineering, Resilience, Enterprise Applications, and Integration where relevant. - Review and provide substantive feedback on key technical and architectural areas (or work with SMEs to do so) - Ensure solutions across engagements to integrate coherently and align to Trace3 well-architected and resilience standards. - Serve as the senior technical authority in client and internal forums; guide engineers, architects, and practice teams without owning line management of them. - Connect architecture decisions to business strategy, cost, risk, and measurable outcomes. - Collaborate with peer Enterprise Architecture Directors to assemble the right architecture team for each account, balancing deep domain expertise with cross-domain integration and commercial relevance. - Author architecture decision records, reference patterns, and standards as a normal part of the work—capturing the decision, constraints, alternatives, and rationale so the reasoning survives beyond the engagement and the individual. **Delivery Excellence and Value Realization** - Champion delivery quality, governance, risk management, and benefits realization on complex, multi-workstream programs. - Guide solution quality across transformation initiatives; ensure adoption and value tracking. - Own escalations and account recovery. Step into engagements that are blocked, degraded, or off-plan—including access and environment failures, platform and integration blockers, delivery or reporting gaps, and disputes over scope, hours, or commercial terms—and drive them to resolution with the client and internal teams. - **People Leadership and Practice Maturity** - Mentor and develop technical consultants and architects; build architecture leverage across the account team. - Productize the account’s success model. Where an approach or methodology demonstrably works, drive into a documented, transferable playbook that other account teams can adopt without the original author present. - Contribute reference architectures, accelerators, and frameworks to the relevant product lines and Guilds. **QUALIFICATIONS & INTERESTS:** - Bachelor's degree (Master's preferred) in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or related field. - 12+ years in enterprise or solution architecture, technology strategy, principal engineering, or technical advisory, with demonstrated client-facing leadership and measurable outcomes. - Deep technical depth in one or more relevant enterprise architecture domains, with practical fluency across adjacent domains such as Cloud, Data, AI, Security, Platform Engineering, Resilience, Enterprise Applications, and Integration. - AI-native working fluency: uses AI tooling as a normal part of the job to accelerate analysis, generate client-grade artifacts, and prototype ideas quickly, with the judgment to validate outputs before they reach a client. This is about how the candidate works, not only what they architect. - Demonstrated ability to connect architecture to business strategy and funded roadmaps, and to influence CIOs, CTOs, architects, and engineers. - Ability to work in a team-of-architects model where coverage, specialization, reference architectures, and quality standards are coordinated across accounts rather than owned by one individual alone. - Experience shaping technically credible pursuits and multi-domain solutions; ability to grow accounts without needing to be a traditional salesperson. - Executive presence with strong communication; sufficient digital-account-lead breadth and delivery accountability to be effective beyond architecture alone. **Preferred Qualifications:** - Architecture credentials, such as TOGAF, and platform certifications across cloud, data, AI, or security. - Experience with well-architected reviews, resilience and reliability engineering, or reference-architecture development at enterprise scale. - Depth in one of the target architect sub-types, such as enterprise security, cloud infrastructure, data and AI, platform engineering, resilience, enterprise applications, integration, or regulated-industry architecture. - Demonstrated use of AI-assisted development and content tooling to compress delivery cycles, and a point of view on where it is and is not appropriate in client work. - Experience designing or securing agentic AI workloads, or establishing governance and guardrails for AI platforms in an enterprise environment. - Prior experience operating in a two-in-the-box or account-team model with sales and delivery partners. Actual salary will be based on a variety of factors, including location, experience, skill set, performance, licensure and certification, and business needs. The range for this position in other geographic locations may differ. Certain positions may also be eligible for variable incentive compensation, such as bonuses or commissions, that is not included in the base salary. Estimated Pay Range $185,000—$200,000 USD --- **The Perks** - Comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans for you and your dependents - 401(k) Retirement Plan with Employer Match, 529 College Savings Plan, Health Savings Account, Life Insurance, and Long-Term Disability - Competitive Compensation - Training and development programs - Major offices stocked with snacks and beverages - Collaborative and cool culture - Work-life balance and generous paid time off **Our Commitment** At the core of Trace3's DNA is our people. We are a diverse group of talented individuals who understand the importance of teamwork and demonstrating leadership, character, and passion in all that we do. We’re committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where everyone feels respected, valued, and empowered to grow. We recognize that embracing diversity drives innovation, improves outcomes, fosters collaboration, boosts teammate satisfaction, and builds a more inclusive culture. As an equal opportunity employer, Trace3 bases all employment decisions based on individual qualifications, merit, and business requirements. We do not engage in discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Any demographic information provided is strictly voluntary, kept confidential in accordance with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) regulations, and will not be used in employment decisions, including hiring, promotions, or mentorship programs. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process or participate in an interview, please email [recruiting@trace3.com](mailto:recruiting@trace3.com). **\*\*\*To all recruitment agencies:** Trace3 does not accept unsolicited agency resumes/CVs. Please do not forward resumes/CVs to our careers email addresses, Trace3 employees or any other company location. Trace3 is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes/CVs.