We’re building a world of health around every individual — shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health®, you’ll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselves accountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do. Join us and be part of something bigger – helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time.

The Executive Director of Architecture is the enterprise technology steward responsible for defining, governing, and evolving the end-to-end architecture strategy across digital experience, platforms, integrations, data, AI, and operations.

This leader ensures the organization builds cohesive, scalable, secure, and reusable architectures that accelerate delivery while reducing complexity, duplication, and long-term technical risk. The role balances strategic architecture vision with hands-on architectural leadership for the company’s most critical initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

1. Enterprise Architecture Vision & Strategy
• Define and own the enterprise architecture north star, principles, and reference architectures.
• Establish clear architectural direction across:
• Digital Experience (web, mobile, chat, IVR)
• Platforms & APIs
• Integrations & eventing
• Data & analytics
• AI & Agentic systems
• Cloud, reliability, and security
• Ensure architecture aligns with business value streams and outcomes, not just technology domains.

2. Solution & Domain Architecture Leadership
• Provide architectural leadership for top-priority, cross-domain initiatives (e.g., connected ecosystem, SSOTs, AI transformation, platform modernization).
• Guide teams on build vs buy vs partner decisions.
• Ensure architectures are API-first, event-driven, cloud-native, and modular.
• Drive reuse through shared services, common patterns, and platforms.

3. Architecture Governance & Decisioning
• Establish and run architecture governance that enables speed, not bureaucracy.
• Define standards, guardrails, and decision frameworks (not rigid rules).
• Lead architecture reviews for major initiatives, focusing on:
• Scalability
• Security & privacy
• Reliability & resiliency
• Cost efficiency
• Long-term maintainability
• Resolve architectural tradeoffs and conflicts across teams and orgs.

4. AI, Data & Emerging Technology Architecture
• Partner closely with Digital AI to define:
• AI & Agentic AI reference architectures
• RAG, orchestration, observability, and safety patterns
• Human-in-the-loop vs autonomous decision boundaries
• Ensure AI architectures integrate cleanly with core platforms, data, and workflows.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and guide pragmatic adoption.

5. Cloud, Security & Reliability Alignment
• Partner with Security and SRE to ensure architectures meet:
• Security, privacy, and regulatory requirements
• Availability, resiliency, and performance expectations
• Embed resiliency, failover, and observability into designs by default.
• Drive cost-aware architecture (FinOps-aligned).

6. Architecture Organization & Talent Leadership
• Build and lead a high-impact architecture function (enterprise, domain, and solution architects).
• Define clear roles across EA, domain architecture, solution architecture, and technical fellows.
• Mentor senior architects and engineering leaders.
• Raise the overall architecture maturity and literacy of the organization.

7. Executive & Cross-Functional Influence
• Act as a trusted architecture advisor to senior executives.
• Translate complex architectural topics into clear executive narratives.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, AI, Data, Security, and Business leaders to drive alignment.
• Represent architecture in enterprise planning, funding, and prioritization discussions.

Required Qualifications
• 15+ years in software engineering, platforms, or architecture, with 5+ years in senior leadership roles.
• Proven experience defining and governing enterprise-scale architectures.
• Deep expertise in:
• Distributed systems and APIs
• Cloud-native architectures
• Integration patterns (sync, async, event-driven)
• Data and AI architecture fundamentals
• Experience operating in large, regulated, high-availability environments.
• Strong executive communication and influence skills.

Preferred Qualifications
• Background in healthcare, payments, financial services, or similarly complex domains.
• Experience architecting platform-based and product-centric organizations.
• Hands-on exposure to AI/ML and agentic architecture patterns.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems at scale.

Pay Range

The typical pay range for this role is:

This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls.  The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors.  This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above.  This position also includes an award target in the company’s equity award program. 
 

Our people fuel our future. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.

Great benefits for great people

We take pride in our comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits – investing in the physical, emotional and financial wellness of our colleagues and their families to help them be the healthiest they can be. In addition to our competitive wages, our great benefits include:

• Affordable medical plan options, a 401(k) plan (including matching company contributions), and an employee stock purchase plan.

• No-cost programs for all colleagues including wellness screenings, tobacco cessation and weight management programs, confidential counseling and financial coaching.

• Benefit solutions that address the different needs and preferences of our colleagues including paid time off, flexible work schedules, family leave, dependent care resources, colleague assistance programs, tuition assistance, retiree medical access and many other benefits depending on eligibility.

For more information, visit https://jobs.cvshealth.com/us/en/benefits

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.