Senior Director, Head of Enterprise Architecture

About the Role

Flywire is seeking a Head of Architecture to serve as the strategic technical partner to the Chief Technology Officer and lead the evolution of Flywire’s enterprise architecture. This leader will define the long-term architecture strategy for our global payments platform while ensuring our technology ecosystem scales with Flywire’s continued growth. The role will establish architecture standards, guide major platform decisions, and drive evolution and modernization across Flywire’s technology stack, partnering closely with engineering leadership, product teams, and infrastructure teams.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the enterprise architecture strategy for Flywire’s global payments platform and software solutions.
• Establish architecture standards across application, platform, data, and infrastructure layers.
• Drive architectural alignment and foster a culture of technical excellence across global engineering teams.
• Build and mentor a small team of domain and platform architects.
• Lead initiatives to modernize legacy systems and evolve Flywire’s common platform architecture.
• Guide the adoption of modern architecture patterns, including microservices, cloud-native infrastructure, and distributed systems.
• Establish architecture governance frameworks, including architecture review boards and design standards.
• Ensure architectural decisions support scalability, security, and compliance while managing technical debt.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to the CTO on technology investment decisions and platform evolution.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and guide adoption to improve engineering velocity and platform capabilities.
• Lead technical due diligence during M&A and strategic partnership initiatives.
• Partner with engineering, product, infrastructure, and security teams to ensure architectural alignment.
• Work with global engineering teams to drive consistent architecture standards.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in software engineering and architecture leadership roles.
• Proven experience as an Enterprise Architect, Chief Architect, or Distinguished Engineer in large-scale technology environments.
• Deep expertise in designing highly scalable distributed systems and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience building architecture strategies for global platforms handling high-volume transaction workloads.
• Strong background in microservices architectures, APIs, and event-driven systems.
• Experience operating in regulated industries such as fintech, payments, or financial services.
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering organizations and drive architectural standards across distributed teams.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to partner across engineering, product, and executive leadership.
• Experience leading architecture initiatives within global engineering organizations.

Pay

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $245,000-$295,000 plus bonus and benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, position level, and location. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education.

Open to Chicago, IL or Austin, TX