The posting
We are seeking a seasoned, self-directed Platform Architect with a strong sense of ownership and a track record of turning fragmented technology investments into cohesive, enterprise-grade platform capabilities. This is a senior individual contributor role for someone who operates comfortably at the intersection of deep technical architecture and executive-level influence — equally capable of designing an AWS landing zone pattern and presenting a platform strategy to senior leadership.
You bring conviction, follow-through, and the credibility to drive platform-first thinking across a matrixed organization without direct authority. If you’re energized by building the connective tissue that makes engineering organizations more effective at scale — and doing it with a bias for durable, reusable, measurable outcomes — this role was built for you.
Senior individual contributor responsible for defining enterprise platform architecture and driving platform-first thinking across Engineering, Infrastructure, Data, and Security. This role exists to prevent the organization from accumulating a collection of team-specific tools and one-off project implementations in place of scalable, reusable platform capabilities. It operates horizontally — influencing without direct authority — and is accountable for ensuring that strategic technology investments compound rather than fragment.
Core Responsibilities
Platform Vision & Evangelism Define and communicate a cohesive enterprise platform vision across developer experience, cloud infrastructure, shared data services, and AI/agentic capabilities. Translate complex architectural concepts into clear narratives that resonate with both engineering teams and senior leadership. Drive platform-first thinking as an organizational default — not an afterthought.
Enterprise Platform Architecture Design shared services with standard interfaces, reusable components, and clear consumption models. Identify where teams are building redundant or siloed solutions and redirect that investment toward durable platform capabilities. Establish and enforce cross-cutting standards for integration patterns, data handling, and platform access — aligned with Security and Compliance.
CI/CD & Developer Experience Partner with engineering teams to define and continuously evolve the developer platform experience. Shape CI/CD, environment provisioning, workflow automation, and supporting services (including test data and environment-scoped datasets) as first-class platform capabilities — not disconnected projects. Identify gaps between available tooling and actual developer usability, and close them through deliberate platform design. The goal is end-to-end developer experience, not tool ownership.
AWS-Centric Cloud Platform Leadership Serve as the architectural authority for AWS-based platform services — including compute, networking, storage, and managed service patterns. Define reusable infrastructure patterns for workload onboarding, environment consistency, and cloud-native service integration. Partner with cloud engineering on guardrails, landing zone design, and account/VPC structure as platform capabilities rather than per-team configurations.
AI & Agentic Platform Enablement Partner with development teams building next-generation AI-driven applications and agentic architectures on AWS (Bedrock, Lambda, Step Functions, etc.). Ensure these capabilities are backed by scalable infrastructure patterns, governed integration models, and reusable platform services — not bespoke builds that can't be operationalized at scale.
FinOps & Cost-Aware Architecture Provide architectural guidance that incorporates cost efficiency as a design constraint, not an afterthought. Partner with FinOps and engineering leadership to optimize platform cost structures and ensure that scalability decisions are balanced against spend. Act as a technical fiduciary — platform choices should deliver measurable ROI.
Operating Model This role defines vision, architecture, and standards. It influences across all teams without owning delivery:
- Platform and infrastructure teams build and operate
- Engineering and product teams consume
- Security, Compliance, and FinOps provide governance and advisory support
- The Platform Architect is the connective tissue across all of them
Success in this role is measurable: platform standards adopted across teams, reduction in redundant tool builds, time-to-environment improvements for development teams, and cost efficiency gains attributed to architectural decisions.
Qualifications
- 15+ years in platform architecture, enterprise architecture, or large-scale systems design
- Deep, hands-on background in AWS — services breadth, landing zone/account design, infrastructure patterns, and cloud-native integration
- Strong experience with CI/CD ecosystems, developer platform design, and DevEx tooling
- Familiarity with data platform concepts including environment data management, masking, and synthetic data at the platform level
- Experience with AI/ML infrastructure and emerging agentic patterns on AWS
- Proven ability to influence and drive alignment across large, matrixed organizations without direct authority
- Executive-level communication and storytelling skills — equally fluent in an architecture review and a leadership strategy session
- Comfortable operating with ambiguity; able to drive adoption through credibility and collaboration, not positional authority
The base salary range for this position is $210,000 - $240,000. Actual salaries will vary and will be based on various factors, such as skills, experience, and qualification for the role. It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range.
In addition, this position may be eligible for a discretionary incentive based on individual and company performance.
Eligible employees may participate in a 401 (k) program with a company profit sharing contribution, medical, dental, vision, life insurance and disability coverage and paid holidays, vacation, and sick days.
About Bessemer Trust
Bessemer Trust is a family office, overseeing more than $200 billion in assets for over 3,100 individuals and families of substantial wealth. Its more than 1,200 employees are singularly focused on private wealth management — disciplined investment management, sophisticated wealth planning, comprehensive family office services, and highly personalized client service.
Established in 1907 as the family office for Annie and Henry Phipps, Bessemer Trust is in its seventh generation of ownership by the Phipps family. As a self-made entrepreneur, Henry Phipps was a founding partner and chief financial officer of Carnegie Steel.
Bessemer Trust retains its original focus as a privately owned and independent wealth manager deeply committed to its mission of providing peace of mind to its clients. Bessemer’s adherence to putting clients’ interests first, fiduciary mindset, and highly collaborative culture are at the heart of everything the firm does.
Key Facts:
- For 118 years, Bessemer Trust has operated continuously in a single line of business, independently owned by one family.
- Headquartered in New York’s Rockefeller Center, Bessemer Trust has 22 offices in total. Woodbridge, NJ, is one of the firm’s largest offices, which hosts a wide range of technology and operations professionals. In addition to its sizable presence in New York and Woodbridge, the firm provides client service through offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Delaware, Denver, Garden City, Grand Cayman, Greenwich, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Naples, Nevada, Palm Beach, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Stuart, and Washington, D.C.
- To watch a video about Bessemer Trust’s history, click here.
- To learn more about Bessemer Trust, click here.
About Our Employee Rewards and Benefits:
We provide exceptional rewards and benefits that are among the best in the industry, giving our people access to a wide range of options, including:
- Competitive base salary plus discretionary annual bonus for select positions
- A 401(k) plan with a generous annual profit-sharing contribution
- Personalized development and career opportunities, including tuition reimbursement support
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans with zero contributions for employee coverage
- Employee assistance (EAP) and wellness programs
- Hybrid work environment: 60% in office, 40% remote for most positions
- Paid time off and paid parental leave
- Employer-paid life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage
- Legal services and financial wellness plans at no cost to employees
Bessemer Trust is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We encourage candidates of diverse backgrounds to apply.
