Lead Architect, Claim

Role Overview

• Responsible for architecture for multiple technology and or/ business segments/domains for a single business unit.
• Translate technology strategy and business direction into actionable architecture roadmaps, ensuring architectural decisions align with organizational priorities and investment goals.
• Identify architectural opportunities and risks that have strategic implications, and proactively surface them to engineering leadership with clear options and recommendations.
• Provide architectural direction on technical patterns.
• Conduct hands-on prototyping and technology proof of concepts.
• Design and document application-level architectures for new and evolving systems, including service decomposition, API design, data flow, and integration patterns.
• Author Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) that capture context, options considered, trade-offs, and rationale for key technical decisions including decisions about AI service integration.
• Present multiple architectural design options to engineering teams and stakeholders, clearly articulating the pros, cons, risks, and trade-offs of each approach.
• Architect for AI-specific concerns such as latency tolerance, token cost management, output non-determinism, and graceful degradation when AI services are unavailable or underperforming.
• Evaluate and recommend architectural patterns (e.g., event-driven, request/response, CQRS, saga) appropriate to specific problem domains.
• Provide hands-on architectural guidance to engineering teams, including reviewing designs, participating in technical discussions, and unblocking implementation challenges.
• Present architecture reviews, technology assessments, and modernization progress to VP-level leadership, communicating technical depth in business-relevant terms.
• Translate AI capabilities and limitations into business-relevant terms for non-technical stakeholders, helping leadership make informed decisions about AI adoption and investment.
• Influence architectural direction across teams through well-reasoned recommendations, building consensus.
• Develop clear materials (architecture overviews, decision summaries, roadmap updates) that enable leadership to make informed technology decisions.
• Build relationships across teams and encourage buy-in for architectural standards and modernization initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s in technology related field or equivalent, with 8 years of architecture experience.
• Experience with cloud-native application design on AWS.
• Ability to evaluate multiple solution approaches and communicate trade-offs effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Understanding of application-level architectural patterns including microservices, event-driven architecture, API design, data modeling, and distributed systems concepts.
• Familiarity with integrating AI/ML services into application architectures, including LLM-based capabilities, agentic patterns, or AI-assisted decision workflows.
• Understanding of the architectural implications of non-deterministic AI components, including testing strategies, output validation, fallback design, and cost management.
• Exposure to AI orchestration concepts such as prompt chaining, tool use patterns, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or workflow engines that coordinate AI and deterministic steps.
• Extensive experience working an agile operational model.
• Insurance technology experience preferred.
• Understanding of value creation and business capability models.
• Strong knowledge of the insurance industry.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively with teammates to achieve mutually responsible results.
• Extensive experience exercising sound judgment, making decisions and committing to a position.
• Strong and effective verbal, written and listening communication skills.

Tech Stack

• AWS
• Cloud
• Distributed Systems
• Microservices

Benefits

• Health Insurance : Employees and their eligible family members – including spouses, domestic partners, and children – are eligible for coverage from the first day of employment.
• Retirement: Travelers matches your 401(k) contributions dollar-for-dollar up to your first 5% of eligible pay, subject to an annual maximum. If you have student loan debt, you can enroll in the Paying it Forward Savings Program. When you make a payment toward your student loan, Travelers will make an annual contribution into your 401(k) account. You are also eligible for a Pension Plan that is 100% funded by Travelers.
• Paid Time Off: Start your career at Travelers with a minimum of 20 days Paid Time Off annually, plus nine paid company Holidays.
• Wellness Program: The Travelers wellness program is comprised of tools, discounts and resources that empower you to achieve your wellness goals and caregiving needs. In addition, our mental health program provides access to free professional counseling services, health coaching and other resources to support your daily life needs.
• Volunteer Encouragement: We have a deep commitment to the communities we serve and encourage our employees to get involved. Travelers has a Matching Gift and Volunteer Rewards program that enables you to give back to the charity of your choice.