Technical Architect

You have a clear vision of where your career can go. And we have the leadership to help you get there. At CNA, we strive to create a culture in which people know they matter and are part of something important, ensuring the abilities of all employees are used to their fullest potential. 

CNA seeks to offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package to our employees that helps them — and their family members — achieve their physical, financial, emotional and social wellbeing goals.

For a detailed look at CNA’s benefits, check out our Candidate Guide.

The Technical Architect will join CNA as a proactive, hands-on individual contributor with two primary responsibilities: (1) the Technical Architect lead our technical vision and strategies for various technology disciplines by crafting standards, documenting best practices, and building reusable components. These deliverables will play a role in guiding how CNA builds, ships and runs software faster, with higher quality, while more secure. It is also pivotal in steering Agile architecture practices at CNA in partnership with delivery teams and prioritizing technical enablers to synergize delivery across portfolios. (2) the Technical Architect will engage with portfolio delivery teams by partnering with Enterprise Architects and System Architects to solve specific technical problems and to design solutions that deliver business capabilities and drive CNA’s journey to modernize applications and migrate towards SaaS solutions or build cloud-native applications in Google Cloud Platform. If you have a passion for architecting for technical agility, possess deep expertise in Java, GKE, Postgres Cloud SQL and microservices architecture, and thrive in a collaborative, agile environment, then this role is for you.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Technology Discipline Ownership:

• Drive technology vision and strategies and be the subject matter expert in the aligned technical disciplines.
• Collaborate with and influence peer architects and shared service partners across technical disciplines to continuously maintain and improve the robustness, currency and simplification of the overall CNA tech stacks.
• Enable innovation by monitoring technology trends, identifying and adopting new technologies and practices that deliver business value.
• Embody servant leadership by prioritizing support for the development teams, facilitating collaboration, and empowering team members to enhance performance and achieve their full potential.
• Develop technical standards and best practices, advocating for engineering excellence.
• Establish guardrails on applying standards to real-world use cases while enabling decentralized decision-making by the delivery teams.
• Champion the design and lead the hands-on implementation of reusable components for efficiency and standardization across the enterprise.
• Lead technical discipline guilds to facilitate community engagement, pursue engineering excellence, and advocate open, transparent sharing and contribution via innersourcing.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning and improvements by sharing knowledge and expertise in various forums.

Portfolio Delivery Execution Support

• Architect and design scalable, resilient, and cloud-native solutions that align with industry best practices and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) guidelines.
• Align portfolio-level architecture with broader enterprise architecture initiatives, contributing to the development of architectural frameworks and strategies.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including developers, system architects, and offshore architects and development teams to ensure successful modernization and migration of our environment. Provide technical leadership, partnership and mentorship to system architects and development teams, promoting best practices, code quality, and adherence to architectural standards.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architects and Portfolio Leads to understand the existing applications and strategy to develop technical solutions that meet scalability, security, and performance, and technical agility goals.
• Alone or in collaboration with Enterprise Architects, drive conceptual architecture design and guardrails for portfolio including contextual overview, capability interaction, and system interactions to guide the release train for feature development.
• Identify and assess technical risks and provide mitigation strategies to ensure successful modernization projects.
• Drive architectural enabler activities inclusive of POC’s or prototypes on unknown solution patterns or new automations/innovations to drive migration/modernization efficiencies.  Influence cross-domain capabilities. 
• Leads and facilitates architecture governance and review processes, including creation and technology standards, patterns, and strategies.
• Researches and evaluates new and/or alternative solutions and technologies to enhance operational effectiveness, reduce costs and/or system risks and increase speed to market.
• Collaborate with the agile portfolio leadership to plan and execute modernization initiatives, ensuring timely delivery and high-quality results.
• Foster a culture of innovation, test and learn, and continuous learning within the technical team. With an ability to lead and mentor a team of developers working on the GCP, with ability and willingness to provide hands-on assistance to POCs and troubleshooting during implementation and delivery cycles. 

Reporting Relationship

Typically AVP or above

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Strategic and innovative leader within a technology organization, passionate about advancing technical vision and strategy.
• Hands-on experience with cloud native architecture and modern engineering practices is required, including modern public cloud services (AWS or GCP or Azure), mainstream programming languages (Java, JavaScript/Typescript, Python, etc.) and modern CI/CD platforms.
• Understanding of agile methodologies and application of enterprise architecture principles to the development lifecycle.
• Ability to design target state solution architectures leveraging modern decoupled, event based, API enabled architecture frameworks.
• Strong knowledge of contemporary technology and business trends that allows architecture to solve problems in a creative and cost-effective manner.
• Solid understanding of insurance functions and processes, both within the organization and across the industry
• Excellent communication and interpersonal and consultative skills to work effectively and build partnerships and relationships across the organization.
• Complex problem-solving skills with the ability to effectively and succinctly articulate an approach and solution for solving to both business and technology partners.  
• Understanding of end-to-end architecture processes and procedures, with familiarities with EA frameworks (e.g. TOGAF) and SAFe Agile preferred

Education & Experience

• Degree in Business Information Systems, Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• Typically, a minimum of nine years of solid, diverse work experience in technology including experience with business analysis and solution implementation.
• Experience leading complex project teams and engaging with senior level business partners  
• Experience in commercial insurance industry and applicable certifications preferred

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CNA is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in the recruitment process. To request an accommodation, please contact leaveadministration@cna.com.