Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
Job Description
The Principal Enterprise Architect is a senior individual contributor responsible for shaping the enterprise systems and data landscape across business domains, with particular focus on regulated, multi-environment architecture and long-range technology rationalization. It defines how enterprise systems, data platforms, and domain technologies should work together across commercial and future government-hosted environments, in partnership with the cloud/infrastructure team and domain leaders.
This role is intended to establish the enterprise architecture practice within Enterprise Data & Architecture. It will lead efforts such as assessing domain technology stacks, defining target-state architecture and integration patterns, and guiding decisions about where systems, platforms, and sensitive data should reside based on business capability, regulatory constraints, and long-term maintainability.
What you'll do
- Define and evolve the target-state enterprise systems and data architecture across major business domains, including G&A, product, engineering, operations, and supply-chain-adjacent capabilities. dataforest+4
- Lead the discovery and rationalization of function-level and shadow IT stacks, documenting current-state architectures, identifying overlap and risk, and proposing a phased roadmap toward a more coherent enterprise landscape.
- Design and govern architecture patterns for regulated multi-environment operations, including commercial and future government-hosted systems, with clear principles for data zoning, system placement, and cross-environment interaction.
- Partner with the Cloud & Infrastructure and Security & Compliance teams on the infrastructure and security implications of architectural decisions, while remaining focused on system, data, and integration architecture.
- Define approved integration patterns between business systems, data platforms, and domain technologies, including API, event-driven, and batch data movement approaches where appropriate.
- Guide decisions about where sensitive, controlled, or regulated data and workloads should live, and how enterprise systems should interact without violating policy or creating unsustainable architecture debt.
- Provide architectural oversight and decision support for major cross-domain, strategic programs such as ERP implementation, data platform modernization, domain onboarding, and future product/engineering data initiatives.
- Establish architecture review practices, reference architectures, and reusable standards so teams can move faster without solving the same structural problems repeatedly.
- Coach software engineering teams on enterprise architecture principles, design standards, and system trade-offs through design reviews, architecture forums, and hands-on guidance that raises architectural maturity across the organization
- Act as a strategic partner to the Sr. Director of Enterprise Data & Architecture, helping extend leadership coverage across domains and enabling a durable enterprise architecture practice.
Required qualifications
- 15+ years of relevant experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, or senior architecture roles spanning multiple business domains and technology platforms.
- Demonstrated experience shaping enterprise technology landscapes across applications, data platforms, and integration patterns, not just designing one platform in isolation.
- Experience in regulated, security-sensitive, or government-adjacent environments with meaningful architectural constraints around sensitive data handling, segmentation, and compliance.
- Experience working in hybrid or multi-environment architectures, such as commercial plus government-hosted, cloud plus on-prem, or otherwise segregated environments.
- Strong understanding of enterprise integration patterns and the architectural trade-offs between APIs, eventing, batch movement, replication, and system coupling.
- Ability to engage effectively with technical teams, business stakeholders, security/compliance, and infrastructure leaders.
- Strong judgment, communication, and facilitation skills in ambiguous environments with incomplete information and competing priorities.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with Oracle ERP, SAP, or another major enterprise platform in finance, supply chain, manufacturing, or product-adjacent environments.
- Experience with modern cloud data platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, or similar, sufficient to guide enterprise architecture decisions affecting data and analytics platforms.
- Experience leading architecture rationalization or modernization efforts across decentralized organizations.
- Experience in defense, aerospace, federal, or another environment with highly controlled data and systems.
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Full-time regular employee offer package
Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
Temporary employee offer package
Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more inform
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