Lead Enterprise Architect

Role Overview

• The Enterprise Architecture Lead is a senior technical leader within Merkle’s Digital Product Engineering (DPE) practice, part of the broader Digital Experience (DX) organization.
• This role combines deep enterprise architecture expertise with a product engineering mindset.
• Responsible for owning the enterprise architecture layer across the engagement, ensuring platform integrity and delivery rigor as the client’s strategic roadmap progresses.
• Architectural Governance & Delivery Oversight
• Owning the end-to-end technical architecture across the engagement, ensuring all solution components align to the approved roadmap, adhere to enterprise standards, and are delivered with quality and rigor.
• Multi-Platform Solution Architecture
• Designing and governing integrated, enterprise-class solutions anchored in the Adobe ecosystem while orchestrating adjacent platforms into a unified architecture.
• Enterprise Integration Architecture
• Designing scalable integration patterns across platforms, APIs, data layers, and middleware to ensure seamless data flow and system interoperability.
• Client-Facing Technical Partnership
• Serving as a senior technical authority with client stakeholders at the VP and C-suite level, translating complex architectural decisions into business-relevant language.
• Innovation Within Execution
• Identifying and incorporating emerging capabilities into the delivery roadmap where they add measurable value, integrated within the existing architecture.
• Cross-Practice Orchestration
• Collaborating with Merkle’s adjacent practices (Content Technology, Commerce, Experience Design) to compose solutions where DPE provides the product engineering spine.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college/university; Master's degree or relevant certifications (Adobe Certified Expert/Master, Salesforce certifications, TOGAF, AWS/GCP) strongly preferred
• 15+ years of hands-on enterprise architecture and solution delivery experience, with a significant portion spent in large-scale SI or digital product engineering environments (e.g., Accenture, Deloitte Digital, Thoughtworks, or equivalent product-minded organizations)
• Broad multi-platform fluency: Working delivery experience with adjacent enterprise platforms including Salesforce (Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud, Service Cloud), middleware/integration platforms (MuleSoft, Informatica, or equivalent), cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP), and data platforms (Snowflake or similar). The differentiator is the ability to compose these into a unified architecture rather than operate them in isolation.
• AI literacy and integration aptitude: While not required to be an AI/ML specialist, must demonstrate a working understanding of how agentic AI, LLM-powered services, and intelligent automation integrate into enterprise architectures.
• Proven track record of delivering large, complex, multi-year, global SI or product engineering engagements ($10M+ scope) from architecture through go-live, including governance of multi-team, multi-vendor delivery models
• Demonstrated experience designing and governing enterprise integration architectures
• APIs, event-driven patterns, ETL/ELT pipelines, and middleware orchestration
• Ability to operate at the C-suite level with poise and credibility, translating technical architecture into business outcomes and building long-term trusted advisor relationships
• Strong delivery methodology experience
• fluent in Agile at scale (SAFe, Scrum of Scrums), waterfall-hybrid models, and the practical realities of governing large programs
• Product engineering mindset: Ability to think beyond governance and into roadmap ownership, backlog strategy, and framing technical debt as a product decision rather than solely a risk register item
• Hands-on leadership style
• this role requires someone who can whiteboard an architecture and present to a CTO in the same week
• Excellent organizational, communication, and presentation skills with exceptional attention to detail
• Experience working within or alongside digital agency, CXM, or product engineering environments is a strong plus.

Tech Stack

• AWS
• Azure
• Cloud
• ETL
• Google Cloud Platform
• Informatica

Benefits

• Medical, vision, and dental insurance
• Life insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• 401k
• Flexible paid time off
• At least 15 paid holidays per year
• Paid sick and safe leave
• Paid parental leave