Director, Solution Architecture - Multifamily BTO (Hybrid - 3 Days in Office)

Position Overview:

As a Director, Solution Architecture at Freddie Mac, you will be working with software architecture teams guiding architecture of all products we build, owning and facilitating architecture development, reviewing architecture, providing feedback on application designs, providing input on company-wide initiatives, and help raise the talent bar by recruiting and hiring top architecture talent. You will also work with product owners to articulate benefits of proposed solutions, influence technical roadmap of platforms, and help business prioritize work. If you have proven strategic leadership, and technical architecture experience with multi-cloud, application transformation, collaborating with agile teams, and would like to be a part of a team providing solution architectures, this role may be for you.

The Director, Solution Architecture will drive technology strategy and adoption. In this role, the architect will guide architecture of a cutting-edge, mission critical application suite which aims to automate and digitize business processes. The architect will define and drive towards an end state that is based on simplicity and the adoption of digital technologies, cloud hosting, and open-source software.S/he will lead a technology transformation involving the modernization of platforms, applications, and data capabilities with a focus on creating a more scalable, efficient, automated, and integrated technology architecture. Other key priorities for this role include embedding platform engineering capabilities, accelerating Multifamily divisions cloud migration, facilitating the integration of scalable data platforms, and optimizing the firm s API strategy.

Our Impact:

• Introduce the overall technical vision for a particular solution by defining and establishing the solution architecture.

• Define High Level Solution Intent, target state architectures and their roadmaps for portfolio products by collaborating with Business Architects, CPOs, POs, CDL and other business and IT partners to ensure alignment in visions, goals and objectives.

• Define and create reference architectures and architecture/design patterns to ensure consistent implementation of the architecture roadmaps.

• Own and drive development and maintenance of detailed solution intent, product architecture for a responsible ARTs (information, application, technology, security and deployment viewpoints) that addresses functional and non-functional requirements and ensures alignment in implementation.

• Plan and Develop Architectural Runway in support of new business Features and Capabilities.

• Identify solution alternatives and/or new technologies to meet new business needs or tackle existing business concerns, such as customer experience, operational efficiency, performance and cost effectiveness.

• Participate in pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment activities to ensure successful deployment.

• Participate in incident resolution process to help troubleshooting, identify issue resolution and impact assessments.

• Build Reference Application/Implementation for reusability and accelerated adoption of new architectural standards/patterns.

• Develop/Maintain Application Design pattern catalog.

Your Impact:

• Stay up to date on the latest technology trends and market dynamics to formulize key technology priorities.
• Integrate the technology, data, and business architecture into a holistic strategy for delivering business value through technology solutions.
• Provide strategic guidance to the head of Multifamily technology on horizontal/enterprise-wide and business line specific architecture priorities, initiative and actions plans.
• Provide architectural thought leadership and develop end-to-end architecture blueprints and roadmaps for all data and technology-based initiatives in Multifamily division.
• Present and communicate architecture vision to various partners, both technical and business, and be able to explain how architecture strategy benefits Freddie Mac.
• Work closely with key stakeholders in technology, operations, the lines of business, and key functions to align priorities and optimize business processes, data flows and technical design.
• Enhance efficiencies by identifying and leveraging common/enterprise-wide technology solutions and the strategic reuse of technology components, platforms, and services.
• Collaborate with the head of Multifamily technology to collectively define and own the division technology vision, aligning to broader company strategy and evangelizing throughout.
• Collaborate with the head of enterprise architecture and other architect leaders across company to drive cohesion, standards, and best practices.
• Lead the modernization, integration, and (as required) the rationalization of applications and technology portfolios.
• Evangelize and influence necessity of better design practices throughout architectural lifecycle management.
• Function as counselor to business counterparts, customers, and senior business management on requirements pertinent to the technical capability
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, and other teams to ensure architecture consistency across organization.
• Establish current and future state technical, data and business architecture standards and governance.
• Build and cultivate an operating model where solution architects work seamlessly with enterprise, platform, security, and data architects to ensure technology meets the needs of the business.
• Participate in Technology Standards and Governance committees to influence and ensure the appropriate levels of governance are in place.
• Develop and document the approach to handle non-functional requirements such as performance, scalability, security, and availability.
• Contribute & support architecture governance processes that effectively balance risk and control with the need for speed and delivery.
• Embed actionable KPIs and real-time feedback loops to ensure timely deployment and adherence to solution architecture principles & standards; monitor progress and course correct, as necessary.
• Review and approve all architecture documents for Multifamily in a timely manner.
• Attract, develop, retain, and lead a team of highly skilled architecture professionals and develop a vibrant architecture community; create a working environment of high employee engagement with a focus on proactively providing dependable, flexible, and innovative technology solutions.
• Ensure that employees understand Multifamily architecture mandate and priorities, and support and reinforce desired behaviors that contribute to business and technology goals.
• Lead solution architecture practice, managing a team of solution architects. Build, motivate, empower them with coaching and mentoring. Conduct team meetings and one-on-one sessions.
• Ensure the team leads through influence, creates fit-for purpose governance, and generates visibility into the operability and effectiveness of our technology-based solutions.
• Identify high potential employees across the group and ensure that they are appropriately mentored, trained and given opportunities to develop into future technology leadership roles.
• Ensure organizational stability by identifying and closing succession gaps.
• Design and develop technical solution (including application architecture, solution design, deployment architecture, DR & integration design) for software projects based on product specifications.
• Develop solutions using latest technology stacks and provide strategy/roadmap for upgrading tech stack for existing products/solutions. Drive architecture/design reviews focused on business requirements.
• Participates in analysis of the business future-state capabilities and future (and current) IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement to drive the business forward.
• Develop and apply standards and minimal viable architectures through the architecture governance model. Clarify accountability and provide the focal point for agile, effective, and efficient decision-making.
• Capture architecture patterns, deliverables, decisions, and rationale in architecture documents.
• Propose most effective architectural solutions to meet cost, quality, and timeliness requirements.
• Provide solutions or guidance to engineering teams to not only increase speed to market but also lower long-term maintenance cost while meeting all non-negotiable requirements.
• Analyze critical software issues and recommend workaround solutions.

Qualifications:

• B.S. or M.S. degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology
• 12+years' experiencein software development, design, and architecture
• 8+ years' experience in solution architecture with emphasis on implementation of scalable cloud/cloud native technical solutions in products
• 8+ years of experience architecting cloud-native applications using AWS/GCP/Azure services with exposure to infrastructure as code and DevOps principles.
• 8+ years' experience in Agile practices, building software in an enterprise environment.
• Deep enterprise architecture experience, including technical architecture, business architecture, security architecture and data architecture practices and their significance with solution architecture discipline.
• Experience with distributed systems, enterprise communications patterns & open standards like REST, Open/Async API.
• Experience with virtualization, containerization, connectivity protocols, microservice design patterns, data analytics, event-driven architecture, domain-driven design & machine learning.
• Knowledge of business ecosystems, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, SOA, data governance, reporting and predictive analytics
• Understanding of enterprise architecture patterns, AWS well architected framework pillars, especially on meeting business continuity plan, resiliency, performance, scalability, operational excellence, and reliability needs
• Experience designing microservices based systems with message-brokers like JMS/Kafka/ActiveMQ
• Experience leading at least 10-member engineering/architecture team.
• Presentation skills with a high degree of comfort speaking with executive leaders & technical teams.
• Excellent business acumen and people skills; able to work across business lines at a senior and executive level to influence and effect change to achieve common goals. Be viewed as a business leader who practices IT
• Experience transforming legacy environment into a modern, scalable service-oriented architecture with efficient, interoperable solutions supported by the latest technologies.
• Excellent communication, relationship management and negotiation skills
• Expert level technical acumen and the ability to understand the business problem, identify opportunities and overcome any technical obstacles, influencing the adoption of proposed solution to meet or exceed business requirements.
• Prior Leadership experience in leading engineering or technical teams
• Depth in various migration techniques such as re-host, refactor, re-architect, re-platform, repurchase.
• The ability to create & articulate application architecture strategy & roadmaps aligning with business goals.
• The ability to effectively balance the desire/need for broad change with an understanding of the amount of change the organization is capable of handling, to create realistic goals and implementation plans that are achievable and successful.
• The ability to set clear and challenging goals while committing the organization to improved performance, tenacious and accountable in driving results.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty; the ability to adapt nimbly and lead others through complex situations.
• A risk-taker who seeks data and input from others to foresee threats or unintended circumstances from decisions; someone who takes smart risks.
• A leader who is viewed by others as having a high degree of integrity and forethought in her/his approach to making decisions; the ability to act in a transparent and consistent manner while always considering what is best for the organization.
• Maintains high say/do ratio.
• The ability to attract and recruit top talent, motivate the team, delegate effectively, celebrate diversity within the team, and manage performance; widely viewed as a strong developer of others.
• The ability to persevere in the face of challenges and exhibit a steadfast resolve and relentless commitment to higher standards, which commands respect from followers
• A leader who is self-reflective and aware of her/his own limitations; leads by example and drives the organization's performance with an attitude of continuous improvement by being open to feedback and self-improvement.
• Drive positive culture, collaboration across the team and Business, and external parties outside of Multifamily division.
• Strong executive presence that inspires confidence, artfully articulates vision, builds networks and is politically savvy.
• Naturally connects and builds strong relationships with others, demonstrating strong emotional intelligence and an ability to communicate clearly and persuasively.
• An ability to inspire trust and followership in others through compelling influence, powerful charisma, passion in her/his beliefs, and active drive.
• Strong capability & ability to drive Stakeholder & Relationship Management with internal & external customers & partners.
• Creates a sense of purpose/meaning for the team that generates followership beyond her/his own personality and engages others to the greater purpose for the organization.

Keys to Success in this Role:

• Can see the impact of near-term and long-term choices and is great at explaining them to stakeholders.
• Has ability to build consensus and iteratively improve solutions breaking down internal barriers.
• Knowledgeable about the business environment while demonstrating the ability to translate key business objectives and customer needs into an effective architecture strategy, roadmaps & solutions.
• Be agile and pursue solutions that will improve stakeholder outcomes.
• Visionary and inspiring technology leader with a proven history of driving successful technology transformations and facilitating change within a large-scale environment.
• Balances organizational risk appetite with innovation needs. Values data and truth over ego.
  Passionately believes in leading by influence and by adding value.
• Has ability to operate at both strategic and tactical level while understanding how to effectively delegate as well as roll up her/his sleeves to be hands-on when necessary.
• Energized by challenges, demonstrate resilience, incredible at technical analysis, and focus on doing the right thing.
• Takes ownership, acting with accountability and urgency. Ability to navigate organization s political climate.
• Modern thinker, empathetic and effective change agent (try new things, "why we can't" to "how we could" mindset)
• Collaborates & shares knowledge openly, broadly, and deliberately.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate strategic and overly complex technical information to audiences of all levels in a way that establishes credibility, influences, and provides relevant context to inform decision making.
• Excel at building and leveraging trust with technical & people leaders across teams to gain alignment
• Has clear, concise communication and reasoning skills, including the ability to make a compelling case for tech choices
• Is enthusiastic about technology and architecture discipline, and applies it in building innovative distributed systems reducing complexity
• Hands-on with cloud native architectures, in particular architecting enterprise grade applications on public cloud such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Is self-driven, actively looks for ways to contribute, and knows how to get things done.
• Possess detailed understanding of tools, trends, and patterns within the software architecture community.
• Has depth and breadth of knowledge and be well-versed in all key aspects of technology/data in modern digital enterprises.
• Have experience in designing applications with container technologies like Docker and container orchestration systems like Kubernetes on cloud platforms.
• Work smart and have fun in getting the job done.

Current Freddie Mac employees please apply through the internal career site.

Today, Freddie Mac makes home possible for one in four home borrowers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing. Join our smart, creative and dedicated team and you ll do important work for the housing finance system and make a difference in the lives of others.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We will ensure that individuals with differing abilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

Notice to External Search Firms: Freddie Mac partners with BountyJobs for contingency search business through outside firms. Resumes received outside the BountyJobs system will be considered unsolicited and Freddie Mac will not be obligated to pay a placement fee. If interested in learning more, please visit www.BountyJobs.com and register with our referral code: MAC.

Time-type:Full timeFLSA Status:Exempt

Freddie Mac offers a comprehensive total rewards package to include competitive compensation and market-leading benefit programs. Information on these benefit programs is available on our Careers site.

This position has an annualized market-based salary range of $189,000 - $283,000 and is eligible to participate in the annual incentive program. The final salary offered will generally fall within this range and is dependent on various factors including but not limited to the responsibilities of the position, experience, skill set, internal pay equity and other relevant qualifications of the applicant.