Senior Director, Architecture & Innovation - CBS

THE OPPORTUNITY

The next era of enterprise technology will not be won by simply knowing the platform. It will be won by helping customers make the right architectural choices as AI reshapes how data, applications, experiences, security, and work come together.

We are looking for a Senior Director of Architecture & Innovation to lead a multi-layered organization of Core Technical and Enterprise Architecture leaders and highly experienced talent across CBS.

This is not a traditional architecture leadership role.

We need a leader who can see around corners, create a point of view, mobilize teams quickly, and translate emerging technology into clear choices for customers and our field, someone who can move comfortably between an executive customer conversation, a deep architectural debate, a strategy session with Sales and Solutions leadership, and an executive update on what we are learning across the business.

You will lead teams responsible for helping customers understand how to govern AI responsibly, activate the full Salesforce platform, prepare data and architecture for production, and reimagine experiences as new technologies emerge.

Just as importantly, you will create leverage. The best work of the organization should not remain inside a single account or team. You will turn what we learn into strong points of view, architectural patterns, field guidance, and repeatable approaches that make the entire CBS organization better.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Lead and Scale an Exceptional Architecture Organization

• Lead and develop a multi-layered organization of frontline leaders and senior architects across a diverse set of architecture and innovation disciplines
• Create a high bar for technical excellence, customer impact, pace, accountability, and executive presence
• Build an environment where teams are encouraged to challenge assumptions, experiment thoughtfully, and bring forward new ideas before they are asked
• Develop strong leaders who can independently run their businesses while operating as one integrated architecture organization
• Attract, grow, and retain exceptional architecture talent while creating clear opportunities for career development and succession

Create the Architectural Point of View

• Establish clear, proactive perspectives on the architectural questions our customers are facing across AI, data, security, governance, integration, platform strategy, emerging technology, and digital experiences
• Anticipate where customer architecture is heading and ensure CBS is prepared to lead those conversations, not react to them
• Move quickly from signal to insight to action, without waiting for perfect information when the field needs direction
• Translate complex technical shifts into simple frameworks, reference architectures, patterns, and recommendations that customers and account teams can act on
• Ensure the organization consistently connects architectural decisions to business outcomes, platform strategy, and the customer's path to production

Lead the Most Important Customer Conversations

• Serve as a trusted architecture executive for strategic customers navigating complex transformation decisions
• Lead conversations that help CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, and other technology leaders understand choices, tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities
• Elevate conversations beyond products and features to how the customer's technology landscape must evolve for an agentic enterprise
• Create confidence when the answer is complex, multiple technologies are involved, or the path forward is not yet obvious
• Step into critical opportunities and escalations with urgency, clarity, and strong executive judgment
• Lead and participate in key customer on-sites, SICs, and workshops, as well as conferences (TDX, DF, etc.)

Make Customers Builder-Ready

• Ensure architecture teams create the clarity required before hands-on building begins: business outcome, use case and scope, target architecture, data and grounding, actions and integrations, trust guardrails, dependencies, and path to production
• Partner closely with Builder leadership so Builder teams enter engagements understanding the architecture, key decisions, dependencies, and definition of done
• Maintain a clear distinction between architectural leadership and hands-on implementation while ensuring the two motions operate seamlessly together
• Identify architectural blockers early and mobilize the right teams to resolve them before they slow execution
• Help create repeatable patterns that move customers faster from strategy and experimentation to production

Be an Exceptional Cross-Functional Partner

• Operate as a deeply trusted partner to Sales, Solutions, Builders, Success, Product, Engineering, and other specialist organizations
• Bring teams together around the customer problem rather than organizational boundaries
• Create clear roles and handoffs while maintaining shared accountability for the customer outcome
• Partner with peers generously. The goal is not for Architecture to own every technical conversation, but to make every team around it stronger
• Surface patterns from the field to Product and Engineering, and help translate product direction back into actionable guidance for customer-facing teams

Amplify the Work of the Team

• Make exceptional work visible and reusable across CBS and Salesforce
• Identify the ideas, architectures, customer lessons, and innovations that should be elevated beyond an individual engagement
• Turn field learning into executive-ready narratives, POVs, reusable assets, and scalable enablement
• Create mechanisms for architects to share ideas, challenge one another, and continuously raise the technical bar
• Give individual architects and leaders visibility for their work, and create opportunities for the team's strongest voices to influence customers, the field, and our product strategy

Communicate With Clarity and Influence

• Maintain strong communication with senior leadership on customer signals, architectural trends, emerging risks, team priorities, and opportunities
• Distill a complex portfolio of work into the few things executives need to understand and act on
• Bring recommendations, not just updates. Surface issues early, frame tradeoffs clearly, and propose a path forward
• Build trust through transparency, strong judgment, and consistent follow-through
• Represent the organization with credibility at every level, from deeply technical teams to Salesforce executives and customer C-suites

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

You will know this organization is succeeding when:

• Customers seek us out for the broader technical vision, not simply for answers to product questions
• Our architects shape decisions earlier, before architecture becomes a blocker to execution
• Builders start ready, with clearer architecture, dependencies, guardrails, and success criteria
• Our best thinking scales, rather than remaining trapped inside individual accounts
• Executive leadership has clear visibility into what the organization is learning, where customers are struggling, and where Salesforce should lean in
• The team moves with urgency, taking initiative and creating direction rather than waiting for requests
• Our leaders and architects are recognized voices with customers, internally, and in the broader technical community
• Sales, Solutions, Builders, Success, and Product view Architecture as one of their strongest partners

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Transformational Leadership

Proven experience leading leaders and senior technical talent through change. You create clarity, raise standards, build followership, and translate strategy into action.

Architecture & Technology Depth

Deep understanding of enterprise architecture and modern technology landscapes, including cloud platforms, data, AI, integration, identity, security, governance, APIs, and modern application and experience architectures. You do not need to be the deepest expert in every dom