Executive Director of Architecture

CVS Health Corporation; Boston (MA); Remote; USD 175,000 - 335,000; Full time

Job summary

CVS Health Corporation seeks an Executive Director of Architecture to steer broad technical initiatives across CVS Health portfolios, unifying capabilities enterprise-wide. You will shape strategy, translate complex tech tradeoffs for executives, and guide senior architects to grow their leadership while delivering tangible business value.

You will lead a team that prototyp es bleeding-edge tech, measures outcomes by real-world results, and builds a practical reference architecture aligned with

Qualifications

• 15+ years as a software developer/architect (20+ preferred).
• Led large architecture initiatives across multiple value streams in a large enterprise.
• Expertise across multiple technical domains; sought after by other architects.
• Able to influence senior executives and translate deep technical detail into business outcomes.
• Experience leading leaders, including senior architects and architecture managers.
• Strong collaboration, negotiation, coaching, and coalition-building skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise-wide architecture initiatives across the portfolio, not just reviews.
• Build real relationships and drive cross-team collaboration.
• Help set architectural direction for CVS Health.
• Lead and mentor senior architects and architecture leaders.
• Develop CVS Health's reference architecture to reflect real-world builds.
• Identify and manage technology partnerships with an architect's eye.

Skills

Leadership at scale

Executive influence

Architectural leadership

Communication skills

Collaboration

Coaching & mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in a technical field

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP)

Enterprise architecture frameworks

Job description

We’re building a world of health around every individual — shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health®, you’ll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselvesaccountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do. Join us and be part of something bigger – helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time.

Position Summary

CVS Health is looking for an Executive Director of Architecture to lead a team driving broad technical initiatives across multiple CVS Health portfolios — all in pursuit of a unified set of technology capabilities.

We're hunting for a rare species: an architecture leader who thinks in systems but dreams in possibilities. You're the kind of person who gets bored drawing boxes and arrows the "correct" way and instead asks why the boxes exist at all. You can sketch wild, unconventional ideas with engineers one minute, then walk into a room of executives and translate them into business outcomes the next — without losing nuance, just real clarity. You're fluent in the bleeding edge — not because it's trendy, but because you're genuinely curious what's coming next and you've already been tinkering with it. You lead teams not by hovering, but by making people want to build something ambitious with you.

This isn't your typical architecture team, and that's the point. We're not a group of theorists sketching diagrams from a tower somewhere above the actual work — we're builders who happen to also think in systems. We prototype, we get our hands dirty with bleeding‑edge tech, and we measure our ideas by whether they actually work, not by how good they look in a deck.

If you've spent your career frustrated by architecture teams that hand down mandates instead of rolling up their sleeves, this is the opposite of that.

*This role can work remotely from anywhere in the continental USA.

Is this you?

• You've led at scale — you can turn messy, competing business requirements into technical solutions that actually hold up in a large, complicated organization.
• You've driven technology strategy and architecture decisions across a large, complex enterprise spanning multiple business domains — not just one product or platform.
• You know how to influence senior executives: you can walk into a room with the CIO or CTO and translate complex technical tradeoffs into strategic recommendations they can act on.
• You've architected large-scale, cloud‑native applications and know your way around the full stack, including cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, or similar).
• You can talk to anyone — business leaders, product managers, UX designers — and actually understand what they need, not just what they said.
• You communicate like it's a craft, not a checkbox.
• You're genuinely passionate about technology, with the technical range to prove it.
• You go both broad and deep, and you'd rather take on strategic technology leadership across a large org than stay in one lane.
• You've managed highly technical teams — and you've also led other leaders, including senior architects and architecture managers, and helped grow their careers.

What you'll actually do

• Lead and shape technical architecture initiatives that span the enterprise application portfolio — not just review them.
• Build real relationships and real collaboration across teams, not just alignment on paper.
• Help set the architectural strategic direction for CVS Health.
• Lead and guide a team of highly technical architects who expect to be challenged, not managed — including senior architects and architecture leaders, developing their leadership skills along the way.
• Help build CVS Health's reference architecture — and make sure it reflects how things actually get built, not just how they’re supposed to.
• Bring an architect's eye to identifying the right technology partnerships.
• Serve as a trusted technical voice to senior executives, translating complex architecture decisions into clear business impact and strategic direction.

What you bring (required qualifications)

• 15+ years as a software developer/architect (20+ preferred).
• A track record leading large technical architecture initiatives that touch multiple value streams (e.g., multiple Release Trains) across a large, complex enterprise.
• Recognized expertise across multiple technical domains — the kind of person other architects go to when they're stuck.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and align senior executives around technology strategy, translating deep technical detail into business outcomes.
• Experience leading leaders — not just individual technical contributors, but senior architects and architecture managers — and a track record of developing leadership talent within an organization.
• Strong collaboration, influence, negotiation, coaching, and coalition-building skills — you can move a room without pulling rank.
• Excellent written and verbal communication

Nice to have (preferred qualifications)

• Experience in health care and/or insurance.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field or equivalent experience required; Master's degree preferred.

Pay Range

The typical pay range for this role is:

$175,100.00 - $334,750.00

This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls. The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors. This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above. This position also includes an award target in the company's equity award program.

Our people fuel our future. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.

Great benefits for great people

We take pride in offering a comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits that reflects our commitment to our colleagues and their families.

This full‑time position is eligible for a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the physical, emotional, and financial well‑being of colleagues and their families. The benefits for this position include medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, retirement savings options, wellness programs, and other resources, based on eligibility.

Additional details about available benefits are provided during the application process and on Benefits Moments.

We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on: 11/30/2026

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.