Principal Enterprise Architect

Celigo; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Three weeks vacation

Wellness days

Parental leave

Monthly tech stipend

Remote-first culture

Career development

Job summary

Celigo seeks a Principal Enterprise Architect to build and lead Celigo’s enterprise architecture from the ground up, governing the portfolio and driving rationalization and cost control across SaaS tools. You will apply AI to portfolio analysis, set standards, and tie architecture decisions to business outcomes with cross-functional partners.

This remote-first role sits at the intersection of architecture and business strategy, offering opportunities to scale governance across the organization

Qualifications

• 10+ years in enterprise or solution architecture.
• Proven track record of application rationalization and SaaS cost reduction.
• Fluency with enterprise architecture frameworks and lifecycle governance (TOGAF-style).
• Strong build-vs-buy and total cost of ownership judgment with Procurement/Finance/Security.
• Preferred: hands-on AI tooling to govern a portfolio at scale; iPaaS background.

Responsibilities

• Build the EA practice from scratch and define operating model and standards.
• Own the application portfolio end to end and drive consolidation of tools.
• Lead build-vs-buy decisions aligned to business outcomes and TCO.
• Stand up SaaS governance and cost-control measures with cross-functional partners.
• Apply AI to analyze portfolio, surface consolidation targets, and manage renewal risk.
• Extend architecture discipline to the AI estate with governance and least-privilege controls.
• Ensure architecture decisions tie to Celigo’s business outcomes and ROI.
• Scale the practice across GTO through embedded architects and a community of practice.

Skills

Enterprise Architecture

TOGAF

SaaS Cost Reduction

Application Rationalization

AI tooling

Build-vs-Buy

Portfolio Governance

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS/Engineering

Tools

iPaaS

SaaS Management

Job description

At Celigo, we believe integration should empower — not exhaust — innovation. As a modern Integration and Automation Platform (iPaaS), we’re on a mission to simplify how companies integrate, automate, and optimize processes. Powered by game-changing technology like runtime AI and prebuilt, mission‑critical integrations, Celigo is redefining how businesses connect their world.

Celigo is looking for a Principal Enterprise Architect who sees the whole estate before they see the parts. This is a founding role: you will build Celigo’s enterprise architecture practice from scratch, turning a highly federated, ungoverned technology portfolio into a rationalized, outcome‑aligned estate. You will govern through influence rather than authority, use AI to analyze the portfolio at scale, and work through GTO’s domain leads to turn findings into real action. If you are energized by converting complexity into clarity and by setting standards that actually get adopted, this is the role for you.

What would you do if hired?

• Build the EA practice from scratch. Define the operating model, establish architecture principles, and stand up a lightweight review process where the right decision is the easy decision. You will set the scope, prioritize what to govern first, publish a standards catalog and decision log, and create the shared language GTO works from.
• Own the application portfolio end to end. Build and maintain the inventory, classify every app by lifecycle status (adopt, hold, retire), and drive consolidation of redundant and duplicative tools. When you surface overlap, you act on it rather than filing a memo about it.
• Lead build‑vs‑buy with a Celigo‑first lens. Start every evaluation with Celigo’s own platform as Customer Zero, weigh decisions against architecture principles and total cost of ownership, and make the recommendation land by connecting it to the business outcome that actually matters.
• Stand up SaaS governance and cost control. Own the SaaS policy, implement a management solution for full portfolio visibility, and partner with Procurement and Finance to act on savings rather than just identify them. Treat every contract renewal as an opportunity to consolidate capability or recover budget.
• Use AI to govern the estate at scale. Analyze the full portfolio with AI tools to surface consolidation targets, flag renewal risk before it becomes urgency, and generate the prioritized action lists that drive productive conversations with Finance, Procurement, and domain leads. Then close the loop by acting on what you find.
• Extend architecture discipline to the AI estate. Define control points, approval paths, and a least‑agency framework so agents operate with scoped permissions and governance that enables speed rather than blocking it. Partner with the AI Platform team to set MCP standards, data‑access patterns, and evaluation criteria so every team builds on a consistent, secure foundation.
• Tie every architecture decision to a business outcome. Align the technology roadmap to Celigo’s goals and ROI in partnership with leadership, Finance, and business stakeholders. You will know the practice is working when business teams come to you before they commit to a new vendor.
• Grow architecture capability across GTO without building a parallel team. Scale the practice through embedded domain architects and a community of practice, so the whole organization becomes more architecturally sound rather than routing every decision through a single bottleneck.

Who are we looking for?

Skills & Abilities

• You see the whole estate when others see individual tools. You ask "why do we have this?" before "how do we use it?" and you convert that curiosity into a rationalization plan that gets executed, not shelved.
• You govern through influence. You build credibility simultaneously with engineering leads, Finance, and business stakeholders, and you align them on trade‑offs without needing a veto card.
• You connect architecture decisions to business outcomes as a reflex. When you recommend retiring a system or consolidating vendors, the business hears a gain, not just a technical preference.
• You ship forward: a solid framework teams can use today is worth more than a perfect standard that lands six months late. You set direction, get adoption started, and iterate on real feedback rather than waiting for complete information.
• You are energized by finding new ways to apply AI to your own work, whether that means analyzing a 200‑app portfolio, drafting a governance policy, or surfacing a renewal risk before a contract auto‑renews.
• You take ownership beyond your defined scope. When you see a gap in system accountability or a contract heading toward auto‑renewal without review, you move on it before being asked.

Education & Experience

• 10+ years in enterprise or solution architecture, with demonstrated ownership of an application portfolio and architecture standards at a software or high‑growth company.
• Proven track record of application rationalization and SaaS cost reduction. You have personally driven consolidation and renegotiation that produced real, measurable savings.
• Deep fluency with enterprise architecture frameworks and lifecycle governance, including TOGAF‑style practice, adopt/hold/retire classification, and architecture review board processes.
• Strong build‑vs‑buy and total‑cost‑of‑ownership judgment, with experience partnering with Procurement, Finance, and Security on vendor decisions.
• Working knowledge of AI and agentic governance concepts, including least‑privilege and least‑agency architecture, control points, and data access patterns.
• Preferred: hands‑on experience using AI tooling to analyze and govern a portfolio at scale; experience with iPaaS or integration platforms and a point of view on Customer Zero; background in FinOps or SaaS spend management tooling.

Celigo reasonably expects to pay a base salary between $175,000 and $200,000 per year for this position. Actual starting base pay will be determined by skills, experience, geographic location, and other non‑discriminatory factors permitted by law. Total compensation may also include variable incentives, benefits, or other perks as outlined in any formal employment offer made.

Celigo is proud to be

• A 2025 Gartner Customers’ Choice for iPaaS. The only vendor to receive this award.
• Celigo is a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for iPaaS for the second consecutive year
• Celigo is ranked #1 iPaaS on G2 for multiple quarters and named a Leader in both B2B/EDI and API Management.
• Celigo is a leading intelligent automation platform that puts the power of automation in the hands of every team, unifying workflows from the predictable to the fully agentic in a single platform.
• Remote‑first culture, built on trust, collaboration, and transparency
• A high‑growth, inclusive work environment where innovation thrives and ideas are implemented
• Lightspeed learning opportunities to keep you at the leading edge of your field
• Exceptional coworkers who challenge and inspire you daily
• Competitive compensation and benefits, including:
• Three weeks of vacation (starting year one)
• Wellness days and holidays to recharge
• Parental leave and a generous benefits package
• Monthly tech stipend
• Recognition and career development opportunities

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

As a company, one of the values we hold most dear is fostering a safe, collaborative environment to bring out the best in us, so we created our Taking a Stand Initiative. Our TAS initiative is a volunteer committee open to all Celigans, with representation from underrepresented voices within our company. We believe, unequivocally, that everyone deserves to be in a place where they feel welcome as they are. Learn more about Taking a Stand .

Celigo is proud to be an equal‑opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military and veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.