Principal Enterprise Architect

As the senior-most technical architect in WME Enterprise IT, this role serves as the principal technical advisor to infrastructure leadership on technology direction. The Principal Enterprise Architect owns the enterprise architecture—standards, reference designs, and governance—that define how WME's cloud, infrastructure, application, integration, and AI platforms fit together and evolve. This position establishes "what good looks like" across the IT estate and ensures consistency as the function builds.

Scope & Boundaries

This role owns enterprise architecture authority and is explicitly fenced against build-and-operate roles it governs:

• Enterprise-wide architecture vision, standards, and reference designs across cloud, infrastructure, application, integration, data, and AI.
• Architecture review and approval authority.
• The multi-year technology roadmap.
• Legacy-modernization and integration/API governance.
• The political and technical standing to enforce standards consistently across pillars.

Relationship to the Senior Platform Engineer: This role sets enterprise cloud and platform standards; the Senior Platform Engineer builds and operates the platform estate within those standards. The Principal Enterprise Architect maintains an enterprise-wide perspective, ensuring standards are upheld even when platform engineering focuses on specific projects.

Relationship to engineering and operations functions: Server & cloud infrastructure, network, and application & integration functions engineer and operate within the architecture and standards set by this role. This position governs and reviews but does not handle day-to-day operations.

Partnership with cybersecurity governance: Security and compliance requirements are integrated into the architecture in collaboration with the cybersecurity governance function. This role ensures architectural decisions align with those requirements.

How This Team Works

Enterprise IT operates on the principle of operational excellence—technology that works reliably, problems fixed at the root, and an engineering bar that continually rises. As the senior-most architect, this role defines that bar for the entire estate. Six operating foundations guide the function, and the Principal Enterprise Architect models and elevates them across all pillars:

• Service management, done right: Designs architecture with built-in service reliability and operability, ensuring dependable outcomes.
• Continual improvement: Treats architecture as dynamic, evolving standards based on real outcomes, metrics, and modernization signals.
• AI fluency: Sets enterprise AI architecture standards and exemplifies AI-augmented engineering.
• Ownership and documentation: Owns the architecture estate end-to-end, leaving reference architectures, standards, and decision records that scale beyond individual projects.
• Security and risk by default: Integrates security and risk into architecture from the first decision, partnering with governance on high-impact choices.
• Clarity and influence: Earns alignment through clear standards, sound reasoning, and credibility—authority through influence, not mandate.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities are grouped into seven pillars spanning the enterprise architecture mandate:

• Enterprise Architecture Vision & Standards:
  • Own the enterprise architecture vision and the standards and reference designs spanning cloud, infrastructure, application, integration, data, and AI.
  • Define "what good looks like" across the estate—opinionated, well-documented standards for engineering teams to design and build against.
  • Maintain a coherent target-state architecture and ensure current-state decisions align with it.
• Cloud & Platform Standards & Governance:
  • Set enterprise standards for cloud (Microsoft Azure) and platform engineering, including governance, landing-zone and identity patterns, automation, IaC expectations, and platform security baselines.
  • Govern the estate against these standards; the Senior Platform Engineer and infrastructure teams build and operate within them.
  • Hold the enterprise standard consistently across pillars, even when platform engineering focuses on specific projects.
• Architecture Review, Governance & Decision Authority:
  • Own the architecture review function—review and approve significant designs across infrastructure, application, integration, and AI.
  • Provide constructive technical critique and improvement recommendations; resolve cross-domain architectural tradeoffs.
  • Author and maintain enterprise technical standards, reference designs, and architecture decision records.
• Technology Strategy & Multi-Year Roadmap:
  • Own the multi-year infrastructure, platform, and enterprise technology roadmap and modernization strategy.
  • Evaluate emerging technologies and patterns for fit, recommending adoption, replacement, or retirement.
  • Estimate effort, risk, and dependencies for major initiatives; brief leadership on direction, tradeoffs, and investment needs.
• Legacy Modernization & Integration / API Governance:
  • Govern the legacy application infrastructure estate—stewardship strategy, lifecycle decisions (maintain, modernize, replace, retire), and risk reduction.
  • Establish and govern API and integration standards, patterns, and reference architectures across business systems, infrastructure, and external partners.
  • Maintain the integration inventory and govern API lifecycle—versioning, deprecation, security baseline, and observability.
  • Partner with cybersecurity governance on integration security architecture and threat modeling for sensitive integrations.
• AI Architecture & Enterprise Standards:
  • Set the enterprise AI architecture standard—how AI capabilities are architected, integrated, and governed across the estate.
  • Provide architectural guidance on model selection, integration patterns, and operational boundaries, in partnership with the AI platform and AI & digital workplace functions.
  • Serve as the principal-level AI-fluency exemplar; surface AI-driven architecture and automation opportunities to leadership.
• Technical Leadership & Cross-Pillar Influence:
  • Operate as the senior-most technical voice across the IT function and the principal architecture advisor to infrastructure leadership.
  • Mentor principal and senior engineers across pillars through design reviews, pairing, and technical guidance—by influence, not people management.
  • Represent enterprise architecture in leadership forums and brief executives on technical direction, risk, and tradeoffs.

Requirements

• 12+ years of progressively senior engineering and architecture experience across infrastructure, cloud, application, and integration.
• Demonstrated principal- or enterprise-architect experience—owning enterprise-wide standards and exercising architecture authority through influence rather than direct management.
• Deep cloud architecture expertise, with Microsoft Azure at enterprise scale—governance, landing zones, identity integration (Entra), and networking.
• Strong enterprise architecture practice—reference architectures, standards development, and architecture review/governance.
• Broad infrastructure architecture across compute and virtualization, networking, identity and access, observability, automation, shared services, and enterprise integration.
• Modern API and integration architecture (REST, message-based, event streaming, integration platforms) and legacy modernization experience.
• Identity and security architecture partnership—Entra ID, conditional access, and Zero Trust principles.
• Excellent written and verbal communication—able to author standards, lead design reviews, brief executives, and drive alignment across the organization.
• Demonstrated experience using AI tooling in technical work—prompt engineering, AI-assisted documentation, and AI-aided design or analysis.

Preferred Qualifications

• Enterprise-architecture certification—TOGAF, Zachman, or equivalent—and Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305).
• Experience leading legacy modernization or replatforming initiatives at enterprise scale.
• Experience establishing enterprise AI architecture standards or AI governance.
• Experience operating within large, complex, multi-region enterprise environments.
• Familiarity with security and reliability frameworks such as CIS Benchmarks and NIST CSF 2.0, and with the Azure Well-Architected Framework.
• Background in media, entertainment, or similar high-velocity, high-confidentiality industries.

Pay

Hiring rate range: $172,500 – $230,000 annually. The company strives to provide locally competitive rewards packages, including base rate, short- and long-term incentives, growth opportunities, and robust benefits such as health care, retirement, and paid time off.