Guardian Life Insurance

Principal Solution Architect, Data (Group Benefits)

Guardian Life Insurance • $150K — $180K *
Holmdel, NJ 07733In-Person
Finance & Insurance
11 - 15 years of experience
Today
Be an Early Applicant
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Deep experience in enterprise-scale solution architectures across various domains.
  • 15+ years of experience in data integration and related disciplines.
  • Proven ability to establish architecture standards and reusable frameworks.
  • Strong understanding of modern technology ecosystems and data flows.
  • Experience in regulated environments with a focus on compliance and governance.

Responsibilities

  • Shape and own enterprise solution architecture strategy across platforms.
  • Define and maintain reference architectures and reusable design patterns.
  • Establish guardrails for secure and consistent solution design.
  • Lead design decisions for high-impact initiatives spanning multiple domains.
  • Translate business strategy into actionable architecture direction.

Benefits

  • Collaborative working environment with cross-functional teams.
  • Opportunities for professional growth and mentorship.
  • Work with cutting-edge technology and data solutions.
  • Focus on driving innovation and product mindset in data delivery.
  • Flexibility for a hybrid work environment with in-office days.
Full Job Description
Position Overview:
  • The Principal Solution Architect, Data is responsible for defining, scaling, and governing enterprise-wide or business solution architecture across platforms, domains, and delivery teams. This role shapes how technology solutions are designed, integrated, secured, and operated consistently across the organization. While architecture is foundational, the Principal Solution Architect, Data will be responsible for designing solutions in close collaboration with the business and technology stakeholders. Where applicable, the role will be accountable to build solutions that scale and align to business and technology requirements.
  • Operating at an enterprise or portfolio level, the Principal Solution Architect, Data focuses less on individual solution delivery and more on establishing architecture patterns, standards, guardrails, and building solutions that enable teams to deliver high-quality, scalable, and secure solutions at speed.
  • This role operates within a federated Enterprise Architecture (EA) model, partnering closely with business technology and platform teams to shape solutions in real time while improving accountability, speed, and delivery alignment. The architect remains connected to the central EA core through enterprise standards, governance, communities of practice, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure consistent, risk-aware technology decisions across domains.
  • This role partners closely with Enterprise Architecture, Engineering, Product, Cybersecurity, and Platform teams to ensure solutions align to business strategy, are resilient and compliant, and can scale across multiple use cases without becoming a bottleneck to delivery.
  • This Principal Solution Architect, Data role will have a strong focus on data solution architecture, modern data platforms, data products, and AI-enabled capabilities across the Insurance business.
  • The role bridges business, engineering, architecture, and data teams to rapidly design, build, and deploy scalable solutions that improve underwriting, enrollment, billing, claims, customer service, Producer, reporting, analytics, and digital experiences.
  • The architect will champion a data product mindset, treating data as a strategic enterprise asset with clear ownership, quality standards, reusable capabilities, governance, and measurable customer value.
Key Responsibilities:
  • Own and shape enterprise or business solution architecture strategy, standards, and patterns across multiple platforms and domains.
  • Define and maintain reference architectures and reusable design patterns ("golden paths") for solution delivery.
  • Establish architectural guardrails that enable scalable, secure, and consistent solution design across teams.
  • Own reusable solution patterns, reference architectures, golden paths, and cross-team design consistency.
  • Work with Solution Architects to drive adoption; Head of Portfolio Architecture to tailor for BU context; Principal Enterprise Architect to align with enterprise standards.
  • Lead enterprise-level or business-level design decisions for complex, high-impact initiatives that span multiple value streams or business units.
  • Provide architectural oversight and guidance across portfolios, ensuring alignment to enterprise standards and long-term strategy.
  • Drive early engagement on initiatives to identify cross-platform dependencies, systemic risks, and scalability constraints.
  • Partner with Enterprise Architecture and platform teams to define build vs. buy guidance and integration patterns.
  • Translate business and technology strategy into actionable architecture direction and solution designs.
  • Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to embed governance, security, and regulatory requirements into solution architecture.
  • Define and promote best practices for operational resilience, scalability, performance, and maintainability.
  • Escalate enterprise exceptions, non-standard patterns, and enterprise-risk decisions.
  • Influence and align stakeholders across engineering, product, and business leadership without direct authority.
  • Mentor and coach architects and senior engineers to elevate architectural maturity across the organization.
  • Represent solution architecture in enterprise forums, architecture review boards, and strategic technology discussions.
  • Influence Value Stream leaders, Product Managers, Product Owners, and Tech Leads to align roadmaps, MVP scope, and technical trade-offs.
  • Where applicable, the role will be accountable to build solutions that scale and algin to business and technology requirements.
  • Be available for production incidents with major impact to business operations.
  • Understand and participate across portfolio initiatives, connect dependencies and opportunities across programs to optimize solutions, increase reuse, and reduce data waste.
  • Drive the adoption of a data product operating model across the organization.
  • Champion data product thinking by promoting customer-centric design, product ownership, continuous improvement, and measurable business value.
  • Establish best practices for discoverability, usability, interoperability, governance, and consumption of enterprise data products.
  • Translate business strategy into scalable technology, data, and analytics solutions.
  • Lead discovery workshops and data solution design sessions across underwriting, enrollment, billing, claims, customer service, reporting, and digital channels.
  • Influence enterprise technology strategy by identifying reusable capabilities and modernization opportunities.
  • Develop reusable frameworks, accelerators, and reference architectures to improve data delivery speed, consistency, and reuse.
  • Design modern data platforms and pipelines that support real-time and batch processing, scalable data integration, and enterprise analytics needs.
  • Ensure high-quality, trusted data through governance, observability, lineage, metadata, and automated data quality controls.
  • Collaborate with data engineering, product, and AI teams to operationalize AI-enabled data solutions within the data ecosystem.
  • Foster collaboration across architecture, engineering, product management, security, data, AI, and business teams.
You Have (Required Qualifications) :
  • Deep experience designing and governing enterprise-scale solution architectures across multiple teams and domains.
  • 15+ years of experience in data integration, data architecture, data modeling, data engineering, solution architecture, or enterprise technology.
  • Proven ability to define and drive adoption of architecture standards, frameworks, and reusable patterns.
  • Strong understanding of modern technology ecosystems, including application architectures, APIs and delivery, integration patterns, AI, cloud platforms, and data flows.
  • Experience balancing business priorities, technical trade-offs, and risk at an enterprise level.
  • Demonstrated ability to operate at both strategic and hands-on levels when needed.
  • Strong experience influencing technical direction across distributed teams without direct reporting authority.
  • Ability to bridge business and technology, translating strategy into clear architectural direction.
  • Excellent communication skills with the ability to convey complex concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Experience working in regulated or risk-sensitive environments with strong awareness of governance and compliance needs.
  • Track record of mentoring architects and engineers and elevating organizational capabilities.
  • Experience collaborating within Agile / product-based delivery models.
  • Experience producing product-level and team-level technical design documentation.


Additional Data-Focused Qualifications Required :
  • Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.
  • 15+ years of experience in data integration, data architecture, data modeling, data engineering, solution architecture, or enterprise technology.
  • Proven experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale data platforms, data products, or analytics capabilities.
  • Strong understanding of modern data architecture principles, including data mesh, data products, metadata, governance, and domain-driven design.
  • Experience with modern data platforms such as Databricks, Apache Spark, Delta Lake, Kafka, or similar technologies.
  • Experience rolling out AI capabilities or AI-enabled solutions within a data ecosystem.
  • Experience within insurance industry, including enrollment, eligibility, policy administration, billing, claims, customer data, and employer administration.
  • Expertise in cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP, APIs, microservices, and distributed systems.
  • Strong programming and data engineering skills in Python, PySpark, and SQL.
  • Exceptional communication, executive presence, and stakeholder management skills.
  • Experience leading data product initiatives, including proof-of-concept development and feasibility assessment.
  • Familiarity with product management methodologies and Agile frameworks.
Success Measures:
  • Increased adoption and reuse of enterprise data products.
  • Improved business outcomes through product-driven data capabilities.
  • Faster delivery of business initiatives through reusable platforms and engineering accelerators.
  • Increased adoption of AI-powered solutions across organization.
  • Higher data quality, trust, discoverability, and governance.
  • Strong cross-functional alignment between business, product, engineering, architecture, and data organizations.
  • Establishment of a sustainable product culture that treats data as a strategic enterprise asset.


Location:
  • Three days a week at a Guardian Life Office in Holmdel, NJ, New York, NY or Bethlehem, PA.


Salary Range:

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

About Guardian Life Insurance

Guardian Life Insurance Careers

Join the Guardian Life Insurance team today and be part of a company that values growth, leadership, and innovation. As a leading provider in the insurance industry, Guardian Life Insurance offers a wealth of job opportunities that empower you to shape your future and strengthen your professional skills. Work You’ll Do At Guardian Life Insurance, you’ll collaborate with a diverse team of experts dedicated to providing exceptional service and innovative solutions to our clients. Our culture thrives on inclusivity and the shared ambition of our team members to drive positive change in the insurance sector. Explore a variety of career paths in areas ranging from customer service to financial advisement, each offering the potential to engage with transformative projects that impact lives. Our commitment to professional growth is evident in our robust training programs, including leadership development and diversity training, designed to enhance your skills and advance your career. Innovative Work Guardian Life Insurance is at the forefront of integrating cutting-edge technology and personalized service. Join us and contribute to initiatives that redefine industry standards and lead to more predictive and personalized customer experiences. Be Part of a Great Team Our team at Guardian Life Insurance is our strongest asset. We foster an environment where creativity and effectiveness are encouraged, making it a perfect place for those who seek to innovate and excel in their careers. With a focus on nurturing talent, we offer comprehensive benefits, competitive salaries, and a supportive atmosphere that advocates work-life balance. Future-Proof Your Career With Guardian Life Insurance, your career is future-proof. Dive into a range of employment opportunities that not only align with your current skills but also challenge you to grow and expand your capabilities. Whether you’re looking for a full-time position, an internship, or even leadership roles, Guardian Life Insurance is committed to helping you find the right path. Stay Connected Join Our Team Discover the job opportunities waiting for you at Guardian Life Insurance. We are continuously hiring and looking for individuals who are passionate, driven, and ready to contribute to our mission. Search open positions that match your skills and interests, and take the first step towards a rewarding career with us. Keep Up to Date Stay informed with the latest career tips, industry insights, and company news—all from the professionals who make Guardian Life Insurance a leader in the insurance industry. Our careers blog provides valuable information to help you prepare for your next interview, polish your resume, and enhance your networking abilities. Job Alert Emails Customize your experience by subscribing to job alerts and insider tips tailored to your preferences. Discover exciting and rewarding opportunities that await at Guardian Life Insurance, and see how you can contribute to our legacy of excellence and innovation. Join Guardian Life Insurance today and be part of a company that’s dedicated to your career growth and professional development.
Learn more about Guardian Life Insurance
Size
9,000 employees
Industry
Finance & Insurance
Founded
1860
* Ladders Estimates

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