Head of Insurance Portfolio Architecture

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; Holmdel Township (NJ); On-site; USD 179,000 - 294,000; Full time

Job summary

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America seeks a seasoned Head of Portfolio Architecture for Individual Markets. This senior leader shapes the end-to-end architecture and portfolio roadmap, influencing investment decisions and aligning BU goals with enterprise standards.

You will guide a team of architects, collaborate with enterprise leaders, and deliver scalable, compliant insurance solutions. Location includes three days a week at Guardian offices in Holmdel, NJ, with flexibility across

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in technology and architecture roles, with significant experience in the insurance industry.
• Proven experience as a Portfolio, Domain, Product or Enterprise Architect in a large, regulated insurance or financial services environment.
• Deep understanding of insurance operations and systems, including policy administration, underwriting, claims, billing, and distribution.
• Strong expertise in end-to-end enterprise architecture, including business, application, data, integration, AI, and digital domains.
• Experience influencing CIO-level and executive stakeholders on technology strategy and investment decisions.
• Strong understanding of cloud platforms, modern integration patterns, data platforms, and AI capabilities applied to insurance use cases.
• Solid knowledge of insurance regulatory, risk, and compliance requirements.

Responsibilities

• Portfolio Architecture Leadership: Drive architecture across multiple value streams within the business unit, ensuring cohesive, end-to-end design across platforms, products, and capabilities.
• Own BU target state, portfolio roadmap, BU architecture priorities, investment influence, and architect leadership within the BU.
• Shape and advance modern platform architecture, including cloud, data, and AI capabilities, to enable scalable, secure, and future‑ready solutions.
• Improve engineering productivity and delivery speed by defining architecture patterns, standards, and operating structures that enable teams to execute effectively at scale.
• Define and own the BU target‑state architecture and portfolio‑level roadmap aligned to enterprise architecture standards and insurance business strategy.
• Work with Solution Architects on scalable patterns for the BU; Principal Enterprise Architect on enterprise alignment and cross‑BU tradeoffs.
• Serve as the primary architecture advisor to the BU Head of Digital & Technology, influencing technology strategy, investment decisions, and transformation priorities.
• Ensure alignment of BU architecture, strategy and technology to Enterprise Architecture and strategy.
• Shapes enterprise architecture direction indirectly by contributing to standards, influencing investment decisions, and advocating for cross‑business solutions through architecture governance and leadership forums.
• Translate insurance business objectives into capability‑driven architectures, including product, corporate systems, underwriting, policy, claims, billing, and customer engagement platforms.
• Ensure architectural alignment across modernization initiatives, new product launches, regulatory programs, and operational efficiency efforts.
• Manage a team of Solution Architects supporting the BU.
• Available for production incidents with major impact to business operations.
• Responsible for building solutions to support their team.
• Investment & Roadmap Influence: Shape and influence strategic investments across: Core insurance platforms (policy administration, claims, billing), Data, analytics, and AI (pricing, underwriting, fraud detection, customer insights), Digital and omni‑channel customer and distributor experiences, Integration, APIs, and ecosystem enablement (partners, reinsurers, vendors), Corporate Systems (HR, Legal, Finance, Investments).
• Balance near‑term delivery commitments with long‑term architectural sustainability.
• Identify opportunities to reduce technical debt, improve platform reuse, and accelerate time‑to‑market for insurance products.
• Identify opportunities that drive reuse, simplification, and consistency across business units, not just within the portfolio.
• End‑to‑End Business Unit Insurance Architecture Ownership: Drive holistic architecture across: Insurance business processes and value streams, Core and surrounding application ecosystems, Insurance data domains (policy, claims, customer, product, financial, actuarial), Integration and event‑driven architectures, AI/ML use cases for underwriting, claims automation, fraud, and personalization, Digital experiences for customers, agents, brokers, and internal users.
• Ensure all solutions meet regulatory, risk, security, privacy, and resiliency requirements (e.g., NAIC, SOX, SOC, data privacy).
• Promote cloud‑native, API‑first, data‑centric, and AI‑enabled patterns where appropriate.
• Governance, Risk & Compliance: Enforce enterprise and insurance‑specific architecture standards, principles, and guardrails; lead or participate in architecture review and governance forums, ensuring alignment with regulatory and risk management expectations; collaborate with security, risk, compliance, and legal partners to ensure architecture supports auditability and operational resilience.
• Stakeholder & Leadership Engagement: Act as a strategic advisor to Business Unit and senior enterprise technology leadership, influencing decisions that extend beyond the Business Unit Benefits portfolio; represent Business Unit architecture needs and trade‑offs in enterprise forums; clearly communicate architectural direction, trade‑offs, and risk implications to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Mentor and develop architects across the portfolio, raising overall insurance architecture maturity.
• Team Leadership & Collaboration: Lead a team of technology architects; partner with business and technology leaders to ensure key business initiatives; partner with key enterprise technical domain architects and governance leader to apply the enterprise patterns, platforms and standards within the business unit; co‑create with Enterprise Architecture Team on business unit technology planning.

Skills

Portfolio architecture

Enterprise architecture

Cloud architecture

AI capabilities

Stakeholder management

Job description

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America seeks a seasoned Head of Portfolio Architecture for Individual Markets. This senior leader shapes the end-to-end architecture and portfolio roadmap, influencing investment decisions and aligning BU goals with enterprise standards.

You will guide a team of architects, collaborate with enterprise leaders, and deliver scalable, compliant insurance solutions. Location includes three days a week at Guardian offices in Holmdel, NJ, with flexibility across