Distinguished Architect
Stitch Fix Inc.
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Job summary
Stitch Fix, Inc. is seeking a Distinguished Architect to set the technical direction for our future platform. You will guide architectural investments, modernize legacy foundations, and ensure reliability, security, and scalability across product engineering, data, and operations.
You will collaborate with CPTO and executives to balance business needs with technology strategy while building an influential architecture community and driving measurable technical excellence.
Qualifications
- Experience leading large-scale architecture modernization across distributed systems, cloud platforms, data ecosystems, integrations, and customer-facing apps.
- Expertise in designing resilient, scalable, secure, and observable systems with reliability engineering and DR capabilities.
- Ability to balance immediate product delivery with long-term platform health and governance.
Responsibilities
- Own and evolve Stitch Fix's enterprise technology architecture, defining target-state principles and modernization pathways.
- Translate business priorities into architectural choices and investment roadmaps for scalability and cost efficiency.
- Partner with product and engineering to ensure client-facing capabilities and AI-enabled experiences rest on durable foundations.
- Lead architecture governance with clear decision rights, lightweight reviews, and standard architectures.
- Identify systemic technology risks like legacy constraints, single points of failure, and security concerns.
- Shape multi-year investments for platform modernization, cloud infra, observability, and data architecture.
- Set expectations for service reliability, disaster recovery, performance, and operational readiness.
- Guide data and AI foundations to support trustworthy, scalable use of data across client experiences and internal workflows.
- Champion engineering efficiency through simplification, platform reuse, automation, and reducing cognitive load.
Skills
Job description
Stitch Fix (NASDAQ: SFIX) Stitch Fix is redefining retail by combining human creativity with advanced data science and Generative AI. As we build the future of personalized shopping, we're equally committed to building yours. We believe in investing in our team as much as our technology. Join us to be a trendsetter in the industry and help us redefine what's possible for our clients, while we help you reach your full potential.
Stitch Fix (NASDAQ: SFIX) Stitch Fix is redefining retail by combining human creativity with advanced data science and Generative AI. As we build the future of personalized shopping, we're equally committed to building yours. We believe in investing in our team as much as our technology. Join us to be a trendsetter in the industry and help us redefine what's possible for our clients, while we help you reach your full potential.
Reporting to the Chief Product & Technology Officer, the Distinguished Architect will set the technical direction for Stitch Fix's future platform and guide the architectural investments that make our products more resilient, scalable, efficient, secure, and adaptable. This is a senior technology leadership role for a builder and systems thinker who can connect business strategy, client experience, data and AI ambitions, and operational realities to a coherent technology evolution.
The Distinguished Architect will work across product engineering, data, platform, enterprise systems, security, and operations to establish clear architectural principles and make high-quality trade-offs. They will help Stitch Fix modernize legacy foundations while preserving the stability, reliability, and client trust that are essential to the business today.
- Own and continuously evolve Stitch Fix's enterprise technology architecture, defining the target-state principles, platform capabilities, and modernization pathways required to support the company’s business and product strategy.
- Translate strategic business priorities into architectural choices and investment roadmaps that balance speed to value with long-term scalability, reliability, security, maintainability, and cost efficiency.
- Partner with product and engineering leaders to ensure new client-facing capabilities, internal tools, data products, and AI-enabled experiences are built on durable, reusable, and well-governed foundations.
- Lead architecture governance as an enabling mechanism: establish clear decision rights, lightweight review practices, reference architectures, and technical standards that accelerate teams rather than create unnecessary gates.
- Identify and prioritize systemic technology risks, including legacy constraints, single points of failure, resilience gaps, data and integration complexity, performance bottlenecks, security concerns, and avoidable operating cost.
- Shape the multi-year investment strategy for platform modernization, cloud infrastructure, developer productivity, observability, data architecture, integration patterns, reliability engineering, and technical debt reduction.
- Set expectations for service reliability, disaster recovery, performance, scalability, observability, and operational readiness; partner with engineering and security leaders to ensure these expectations are practical and measurable.
- Guide the design of data and AI foundations that support trustworthy, scalable use of data and machine learning across client experiences, merchandising, operations, and internal workflows.
- Champion engineering efficiency through principled simplification, platform reuse, automation, and architecture choices that reduce cognitive load, improve developer throughput, and manage total cost of ownership.
- Advise the CPTO and executive stakeholders on major technical decisions, investment trade-offs, vendor and build-versus-buy choices, and the risks or opportunities created by emerging technologies.
- Build and convene an influential architecture community across Stitch Fix, developing senior technical talent and creating shared ownership for high-quality technical decisions.
- Communicate technical strategy and architectural trade-offs in clear business terms so leaders can make informed decisions with confidence.
- Stitch Fix has a clear, credible architecture strategy that connects technology investments to business outcomes, client value, and the company’s future growth.
- Product and engineering teams can move faster with reusable platforms, well-understood standards, simpler integration patterns, and fewer avoidable dependencies.
- The platform becomes more reliable, secure, observable, and scalable, reducing operational risk while protecting client trust.
- Modernization is managed as a focused investment portfolio with transparent trade-offs, measurable progress, and clear accountability rather than as unfunded or disconnected technical debt.
- Data and AI capabilities are built on foundations that are governed, accessible, safe, and designed for durable business value.
- Technology cost and engineering effort are directed toward the highest-value architectural investments, with less duplication, complexity, and reactive work.
This is what you'll need to succeed in this role from day 1.
- Deep, hands-on technical leadership experience as a Chief Architect, Distinguished Engineer, VP of Architecture, or comparable role in a complex digital, e-commerce, marketplace, or consumer technology environment.
- A record of leading large-scale architecture modernization across distributed systems, cloud platforms, data ecosystems, integrations, and customer-facing applications.
- Expertise in designing resilient, scalable, secure, and observable systems, including reliability engineering, performance, disaster recovery, and operational excellence.
- Strong judgment on how to manage the tension between immediate product delivery and long-term platform health, with a demonstrated ability to make trade-offs explicit and actionable.
- Experience establishing architecture principles, technical standards, reference patterns, and governance practices that strengthen autonomy and execution rather than centralizing all decisions.
- Fluency in modern cloud-native engineering, APIs and event-driven integration, data platforms, AI and machine-learning foundations, security, and developer productivity practices.
- Ability to assess technology investments through business value, risk, lifecycle cost, scalability, and organizational capability, not solely technical elegance.
- Exceptional influence and communication skills, with the ability to earn trust from engineers, product leaders, executives, and non-technical business partners.
- A coaching-oriented leadership style that raises the technical bar, develops senior talent, and fosters constructive debate, curiosity, and accountability.
- A bias for pragmatic action, continuous improvement, and simple, durable solutions in environments with legacy complexity and evolving business needs.
- Fuse human creativity and styling expertise to redefine personalized retail.
- Set a high bar for our craft and drive measurable impact across fashion, tech, and data science.
- Actively leverage AI and modern tech to evolve how work gets done.
- Lead with innovation, think boldly, and are not afraid to challenge conventional retail norms.
- Win together in a collaborative, low-ego environment where diverse perspectives are celebrated.
- Be client obsessed by putting our customers at the heart of every decision to deliver unmatched personalization and trust.
- Support our team with competitive compensation packages, comprehensive benefits, and meaningful career growth.
This role will receive a competitive salary, benefits, and equity. The salary for US-based employees hired into this role will be aligned with the range below, which includes our three geographic areas. A variety of factors are considered when determining someone's compensation- including a candidate's professional background, experience, location, and performance. This position is eligible for an annual bonus, and new hire and ongoing grants of restricted stock units, depending on employee and company performance. In addition, the position is eligible for medical, dental, vision, and other benefits.
Salary Range
$183,600-$306,000 USD
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