Solution Architect , Group Benefits Technology

Guardian Life Insurance; United States; Hybrid; USD 119,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Guardian Life Insurance seeks a Solution Architect to own and shape technical solutions at the value-stream and product level, ensuring alignment, scalability, and security. This hands-on role partners with Tech Leads, Product Owners, and delivery teams to translate business needs into sound technology solutions.

The architect operates within an federated EA model, collaborating across business tech, platform teams, and governance to ensure consistent, risk-aware decisions and expedited

Qualifications

• Designing and delivering enterprise-scale technology solutions.
• Experience with cloud platforms, APIs, data integration, and modern architectures.
• Strong collaboration in Agile/product-based delivery.
• Hybrid on-premise and public cloud architecture design experience.
• Insurance domain solutions experience and handling large-scale systems.
• Understanding GenAI frameworks and best practices.
• Balance speed, quality, risk, and sustainability in decisions.
• Excellent communication with business and delivery stakeholders.
• Experience producing technical design docs at product and team levels.

Responsibilities

• Owns product/team-level solution design and delivery architecture.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture and platform teams.
• Design solution architectures including application, data, and infrastructure components.
• Lead proof-of-concepts for new capabilities and influence strategy.
• Mentor engineers on architecture principles and decisions.
• Identify dependencies and impediments impacting delivery.
• Ensure alignment with Guardian standards and security requirements.
• Provide hands-on guidance on design quality and code structure.
• Assist with production incidents when major impact occurs.
• Align roadmaps with Product Owners and tech leads.
• Reuse enterprise capabilities where appropriate.

Skills

Solution architecture

Enterprise-scale solutions

Cloud platforms

APIs

Agile delivery

Communication skills

Tools

GenAI frameworks

APIs

Job description

Position Overview

The Solution Architectis responsible forowning and shaping technical solutions at the value-stream and product level, ensuring architectural alignment, scalability, and adherence to Guardian standards. This role ishands-on and execution-oriented, partnering closely with Tech Leads, Product Owners, and delivery teams to translate business needs into sound, secure, and resilient technology solutions.

This roleoperateswithin a federated Enterprise Architecture (EA)model, partnering closely with business technology and platform teams to shape solutions in real time while improving accountability, speed, and delivery alignment. The architectremainsconnected to the central EA core through enterprise standards, governance, communities of practice, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure consistent, risk-aware technology decisions across domains.

The Solution Architect focuses onsolution design, delivery enablement, and technical problem solving,buildingsolutionswhile collaborating withBusinessstakeholders,EnterpriseArchitectureand platform teams to align with broader enterprise patterns.

Key Responsibilities

• Ownsproduct/team-level solution design and delivery architecture
• Works withPrincipal Solution Architect for patterns/guardrails; Head of Portfolio Architecture for BU priorities; Principal Enterprise Architect only when enterprise exceptions or cross-domain conflicts arise
• Ownproduct- and team-level technical architecture decisionswithin a value stream.
• Design and document solution architectures, includingapplication, integration, data, and infrastructure components.
• Partner with Product Owners and Tech Leads to alignroadmaps, MVP scope, and technical trade-offs
• Ensure solutions followGuardian architecture standards, security requirements, and design patterns
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture and platform teams toreuse enterprise capabilitieswhereappropriate
• Identify, manage, and help resolvetechnical dependencies and impedimentsimpactingdelivery
• Providehands-on guidance to teams ondesign quality, code structure, and technical approaches
• Lead proof-of-concepts for new business capabilities,InfluencingTechnology Strategy, Solution Design, Architecture Standards
• Mentor engineers on architecture principles, design decisions, and problem-solving techniques
• Continuously look for opportunities tosimplify designs, reduce technical debt, and improve delivery efficiency
• Where applicable, the role will be accountable to build solutions that scale and algin to business and technology requirements
• Available for production incidents with major impacttobusiness operations

You Have

• Strong experience designing and deliveringenterprise-scale technology solutions
• Working knowledge ofcloud platforms, APIs, data integration, and modern applicationarchitectures
• Experience collaboratingwithinAgile / product-based delivery models
• Experience in designing hybrid architectures where applicationsresidebothon-premiseand publiccloudincluding understanding of cloud provider services
• Proventrack recordof architecting solutions that demand operating large scale business critical systems inInsurancedomain
• Good understanding of GenAI frameworks,toolsand best practices
• Ability to balancespeed, quality, risk, and long-term sustainabilityin technical decisions
• Strong communicationskills to translatetechnical concepts for business and delivery stakeholders
• Experience producingproduct-level and team-level technical design documentation

Location: 3 days per week in New York NY, Holmdel NJ, Bethlehem PA, or Stamford CT

Salary Range

$118,980.00 - $195,465.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals. Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [e-mail]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools”) to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.

Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to [e-mail], making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via [e-mail].

Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here.