Principal Architect

About the role

Cox Automotive’s Architecture group is seeking a Principal Architect to lead the design and delivery of next‑generation platforms that power inventory management, deal creation, validation and service across the retail lifecycle. The role combines technical leadership, AI innovation and platform modernization for key CAI products.

Key responsibilities

• Drive solution design from discovery through delivery, shaping epics, validating assumptions and surfacing risks early.
• Partner with engineering, product and agile leaders to prioritize architectural investments and balance short‑term delivery with long‑term platform health.
• Champion adoption of Cox Automotive’s common tenancy, user‑management platforms and AWS‑native patterns.
• Identify, evaluate and integrate generative AI capabilities, ensuring alignment with Retail Agentic Platform standards.
• Produce and maintain architectural artifacts such as roadmaps, decision records, solution diagrams and integration models.
• Assess emerging AI technologies and work with governance to meet ethical, regulatory, security and enterprise standards.
• Mentor engineering teams on AI best practices, conduct design reviews and lead proofs of concept.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent combination of advanced degree and experience) with at least 10 years of relevant experience.
• Proven ability to align diverse stakeholders, navigate ambiguity and drive consensus across engineering, product and business teams.
• Highly analytical with the capacity to dive deep technically and deliver rapid proofs of concept.
• Broad architectural knowledge spanning application, integration and platform domains, linking technical decisions to business outcomes.

Required skills

• AWS and AWS‑native architectural patterns.
• API design and delivery at scale, including GraphQL and REST.
• Application and platform architecture.
• Generative AI integration and AI‑focused solution design.