Director, Enterprise Architecture

What's The Role? The Director, Enterprise Architecture plays a pivotal role within HERE's Compute Foundation organization, leading the definition and evolution of enterprise-wide architectural strategy that underpins our AI ambitions and Enterprise business goals. This role oversees a small team of Enterprise Architects responsible for shaping coherent architectures across cloud platforms, developer enablement, corporate and employee applications as well as AI capabilities across these areas. The Director ensures that HERE's technology landscape advances in a way that offloads complexity from engineering teams and employees, enabling them to move faster, while maintaining architectural consistency, reusability, and cost efficiency across horizontals. The EA team partners with Solution Architects, Software Architects and engineering teams who design and implement project-specific solutions using these patterns, ensuring consistency and faster execution at scale. This role owns enterprise reference architectures, standards, and guardrails for AI capabilities across cloud platforms, developer enablement, corporate/employee applications, and shared services. The role defines and governs the end-to-end AI/GenAI lifecycleincluding LLMOps/MLOps, evaluation, observability, and model/prompt/version controlsso AI systems are production-ready and measurable. It establishes guardrails for agentic systems (orchestration, tool access governance, human-in-the-loop controls, and auditability) and partners with Security, Privacy, and Data teams to ensure compliance-by-design. Success is measured by adoption, reduced technical debt, improved developer experience and delivery speed, and predictable cost efficiency for both cloud and AI workloads. A core focus of this role is enabling HERE's AI journeyensuring that AI, data platforms and automation are architected, governed, and operationalized to deliver measurable improvements in productivity, reliability, and customer value for both HERE customers and internal teams. Main Responsibilities Leadership & Organization Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing Enterprise Architecture team aligned to HERE's platform and product strategyEstablish Enterprise Architecture as a strategic partner to Engineering, Product Management, and Platform Engineering leadershipContribute to the advancement of architectural and technical leadership practices across HERE R&D Enterprise & Platform Architecture Define and maintain enterprise architecture vision, principles, standards, and target-state roadmapsEnsure architectural alignment across Compute Foundation services, platform components, and product-facing capabilitiesDrive architectural consistency across developer platforms, shared services, APIs, and internal toolingSupport use of cloud-native, platform-oriented, and service-based architecturesOwn enterprise reference architectures, standards, and guardrails for platform and AI capabilities; partner with Solution Architects and delivery teams who design and implement project-specific solutions using these patterns AI & Data Architecture Leadership Lead architectural strategy for AI/ML and Generative AI across HERE, including:Data platforms and pipelinesModel integration and inference servicesModel lifecycle managementResponsible AI, governance, and complianceDefine reference architectures and reusable patterns for AI-enabled workflows, agentic systems, and automationPartner with platform engineering, security, privacy, and data teams to ensure AI systems are secure, scalable, compliant, and observableEstablish patterns for agent orchestration, tool access governance, human-in-the-loop controls, auditability, and security protections (e.g., prompt injection and data exfiltration controls) for action-taking AI systemsDefine and govern the end-to-end AI/GenAI lifecycle, including LLMOps/MLOps, evaluation, observability, incident response, and model/prompt/version controlsDefine enterprise patterns for retrieval and knowledge systems (RAG), including content curation, lineage, freshness, semantic access controls, and integration with systems of record.Partner with FinOps to define cost attribution and budgets for AI workloads (token economics, model routing, usage caps), ensuring predictable unit economics at scale Governance & Decision Making Define the EA engagement model, decision thresholds, and governance routes to ensure architecture accelerates delivery while managing riskChair or actively participate in architecture review boards and technical governance forumsGuide build/buy/partner decisions for major platforms, AI capabilities, and foundational technologiesBalance speed and innovation with long-term sustainability, cost (CPM), and operational efficiency Metrics, Outcomes & Continuous Improvement Define and track key metrics such as:Platform and service adoptionArchitecture health and technical debtAI utilization and productivity impactCost efficiency (CPM) and operational scalabilityDrive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance developer experience, delivery speed, and platform reliability Environment Strategic leadership role influencing large, business-critical platforms and shared servicesMakes decisions impacting large, strategic products or small sets of related productsEnsures decisions are cascaded through impacted engineering teams and product ownersDrives fundamental innovation that may result in entirely new products or significant changes to existing products Scope Leadership role with people management responsibilitiesManages headcount, costs of team and operating costs of associated tools/servicesAccountable for architecture direction across multiple domains and platformsInfluences significant technology investments and long-term platform evolution Impact Decision Making Guided by group strategy, has broad impact on the results of a major or strategic area, small sub-group, or region.Makes and governs architectural decisions impacting multiple HERE internal services, applications and platformsEnsures architectural decisions are cascaded to architects, engineers, and product teams and executed effectivelyDrives foundational innovation that enables new AI-driven capabilities and platform differentiationActs as a primary architectural advocate in portfolio planning and strategic initiatives Who Are You? 15+ years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 12+ years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 8+ years experience; or equivalent experience.Leading AI transformation and evolving Enterprise Architecture into a high impact functionDefining and executing enterprise-scale architecture strategiesStrong background in cloud platforms, distributed systems, DevOps, and platform engineeringDemonstrated leadership in AI/ML and Generative AI architectures, including governance and responsible AI practicesExperience working closely with product management, engineering, security, finance, and operationsAbility to influence senior technical and business leaders through clear, pragmatic, and outcome-focused architectureExperience operating in large-scale, global, multi-product environments The expected base salary range for this position is $194,000 to $278,000 per year. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as skills and experience. This position is also eligible for an annual performance bonus, which is subject to company and individual performance. Life at HERE comes with generous benefits to support your health and overall wellness. Benefits available to US-based HERE employees include health (Medical/Dental/Vision) insurance, retirement savings plans, paid time off & leave policies. As part of HERE Technologies employment process, candidates will be required to successfully complete a background verification process. Offers of employment and any related claims are subject to the successful completion of a background verification. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, HERE will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. HERE is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics. Under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and VEVRAA, we have developed an affirmative action program (AAP) for individuals with disabilities and protected veterans. Portions of the AAP are available for review by applicants and