Lead Architect - Infrastructure

Company

Cox Automotive - USA

Job Family Group

Engineering / Product Development

Job Profile

Lead Architect

Management Level

Manager - Non People Leader

Flexible Work Option

Hybrid - Ability to work remotely part of the week

Travel %

Yes, 5% of the time

Work Shift

Day

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.

Job Description

The Lead M&A Infrastructure Architect evaluates and synthesizes target organizations’ infrastructure across domains and defines integration strategies and architecture decisions for integration with Cox Automotive technology standards while preserving deal value. The role balances integration priorities with operational capacity and supports acquired teams throughout the integration process.
 

This position partners closely with the M&A Center of Excellence, the IOPS M&A Integration Lead, and Infrastructure and Operations platform teams (Cloud, Network, Incident and Data Center) to define current, transition, and future state architectures, defining “the what and why”, along with actionable roadmaps that delivery teams can execute.
 

The role applies AI-augmented methods to accelerate due diligence, improve assessment quality, and strengthen integration planning across the full M&A lifecycle including Due Diligence, Integration Planning, Day 1, Post-Merger Integration, and Steady State.

Key Responsibilities

• Author and govern infrastructure integration blueprints and roadmaps across current, transition, and future states for acquisitions and divestitures.
• Develop multi-domain scenario plans with trade-off analysis and estimates mapping current to future state in coordination with the M&A Center of Excellence.
• Produce architecture decisions and design artifacts that enable delivery teams to implement solutions that are scalable, secure, supportable, and aligned with enterprise strategy.
• Create design artifacts and diagrams representing desired changes in infrastructure architecture.
• Promote Cox Automotive infrastructure standards and design patterns; document and guide variances through approval.
• Lead alignment with acquired company stakeholders and CAI Infrastructure and Operations platform teams to align on roadmap and sequencing.
• Serve as a technical authority bridging platform engineering and delivery teams, reviewing designs and improving collaboration between groups.
• Facilitate virtual and in-person working sessions, including whiteboarding, to build alignment on integration direction.
• Produce executive-ready summaries highlighting decisions, risks, tradeoffs, and progress.
• Evaluate operational and engineering capacity impacts of incoming scope and provide readouts for downstream planning.
• Use AI-assisted techniques for infrastructure due diligence, including document analysis, infrastructure scope classification, technology overlap identification, and risk assessment.
• Apply AI tools to support architecture optioning, validation, and integration scenario evaluation.
• Support architectural governance, compliance, standards gap analysis, and documentation using structured and AI-augmented methods.
• Stay informed on infrastructure and cloud trends, including AI/ML infrastructure patterns, and assess relevance to integration strategies.
• Establish yourself as a trusted technical advisor with key internal and external stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a relevant discipline and 6 years of related experience. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a master’s degree and 4 years of experience, a Ph.D. and 1 year of experience, or 18 years of experience in a related field.
• 3+ years of experience owning architecture strategy across M&A technology integration and divestiture engagements.
• 3+ years of experience applying structured architecture and design practices in a corporate environment.
• Experience in modeling complex multi-tier infrastructure architectures and leading design discussions with teams and stakeholders across all organizational levels, ensuring effective alignment between technical and business objectives.
• Subject matter expert depth in one or more domains with breadth across cloud platforms, networking, compute, virtualization, storage, monitoring, and security.