Lead Architect

Cox Automotive; Kansas City (MO); On-site; USD 123,000 - 204,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible vacation policy

Seven paid holidays

Wellness stipend

Job summary

Cox Automotive's CAI Architecture Team is seeking a Lead Architect to guide platform modernization and AI initiatives across CAI services. You will define architectural direction, shape epics, and collaborate with cross-functional leaders to balance near-term delivery with long-term health.

The role requires strong experience in application architecture, API delivery at scale, and cloud proficiency, with a focus on enabling scalable, data-driven solutions across the retail lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related discipline with 6+ years of experience, or equivalent combinations.
• Proven ability to align diverse stakeholders around technical direction across engineering, product, and business teams.
• Hands-on with proof-of-concepts, experimentation, and deep technical dives.
• Broad architectural knowledge spanning apps, integrations, and platforms; tie technical decisions to business outcomes.
• Experience architecting APIs at scale (GraphQL/REST) in a production environment.
• Public cloud experience (AWS preferred) and familiarity with AI technologies.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the architectural vision across multiple delivery teams.
• Drive solution design from discovery to delivery, shaping epics and surfacing risks.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and agile leaders to plan architectural investments.
• Identify and reduce technical debt in deal initiation surfaces and legacy integrations.
• Champion adoption of shared tenancy, user management platforms, and AWS-native patterns.
• Evaluate Gen AI tooling and AI-enabled features for new products and capabilities.
• Produce architectural artifacts such as roadmaps, diagrams, and integration models.

Skills

Architectural leadership

API delivery

GraphQL/REST APIs

AWS

Gen AI

DevOps

Python/Node.js

Distributed systems

Databases (SQL/NoSQL)

Stakeholder alignment

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related discipline

Tools

AWS

Job description

Cox Automotive's architecture group is reimagining the car-buying and service experience from inventory management, consumer shopping, service, and deal inception to close. The CAI Architecture Team architects and evolves the platforms that power inventory management, deal creation, validation, and service across the retail lifecycle.

The Lead Architect provides technical leadership for key Cox Automotive products, advancing platform modernization, solution architecture, and AI initiatives across CAI services.

What You'll Do

• Define and evolve the architectural vision, translating business priorities into durable technical direction across multiple delivery teams
• Drive solution design from discovery through delivery - shaping epics, validating assumptions, surfacing risks early, and aligning teams to target architecture
• Partner with engineering, product, and agile leaders to sequence and prioritize architectural investments, balancing near-term delivery with long-term platform health
• Identify and reduce technical debt in the deal initiation surface, including dependencies on legacy dealer workflow integrations
• Champion adoption of Cox Automotive's Common tenancy and user management platforms and AWS-native patterns within the value stream
• Identify and champion the use of generative AI within new products and features, aligning these to the Retail Agentic Platform capabilities and standards
• Produce and maintain architectural artifacts - roadmaps, decision records, solution diagrams, integration models - that give teams clear, actionable direction
• Evaluate emerging technologies, including Gen AI tooling, for applicability to deal initiation and structuring use cases

Who You Are: Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related discipline and 6 year's experience in a related field. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a master's degree and 4 years' experience; a Ph.D. and 1 years' experience; or 18 years' experience in a related field.
• Proven ability to align diverse stakeholders around technical direction, navigate ambiguity, and drive consensus across engineering, product, and business teams.
• Highly analytical and capable of diving technically deep to rapidly deliver proof-of-concepts and perform experimentation.
• Breadth of architectural knowledge spanning application, integration, and platform domains, with the ability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes.
• Extensive technical experience in application architecture and API delivery at scale.

• Experience developing APIs at scale using GraphQL and/or REST.
• Experience in full development life cycle with significant experience delivering applications and architecture services in a production environment.
• Strong familiarity with architecting for and delivering solutions in a public cloud environment (AWS preferred).
• Hands-on experience with AI technologies and concepts (LLMs, autonomous agents, vector databases, model selection, agent-based architecture, data pipeline, AI-assisted PDLC, etc.)
• Experience working within DevOps cultures, with a focus on process improvement, automation, and continuous delivery.
• Strong proficiency with relational and non-relational database technologies (Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, graph datastores, etc.), especially for information processing and exchange.
• Experience developing software in Python, Node.js, and other languages (Java, Scala, C#, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven ability to identify and select appropriate application and data systems for varied workloads - integrations, processing, APIs, and operational reporting.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, event-driven architecture, and async messaging patterns at consumer scale.
• Experience with API governance, API contract management, and establishing standards across engineering teams.
• Demonstrated ability to drive platform thinking - identifying reuse opportunities, reducing duplication, and shaping shared capabilities across delivery streams.
• Track record of enabling teams through influence without authority - mentoring engineers, shaping technical direction, and elevating architectural maturity across an organization.

USD 122,600.00 - 204,400.00 per year

Compensation:

Compensation includes a base salary in the range of $122,600.00 - $204,400.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidate's knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.

Benefits:

The Company offers eligible employees the flexibility to take as much vacation with pay as they deem consistent with their duties, the company's needs, and its obligations; seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year; and up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually for their own wellness or that of family members. Employees are also eligible for additional paid time off in the form of bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.

EOE, including disability/vets