Sr Principal Architect - Architecture Practice - Washington / Philadelphia / Wilmington DE / Chicago

Your success is a train ride away!

As we move America’s workforce toward the future, Amtrak connects businesses and communities across the country. We employ more than 20,000 diverse, energetic professionals in a variety of career fields throughout the United States. The safety of our passengers, our employees, the public and our operating environment is our priority, and the success of our railroad is due to our employees.

Are you ready to join our team?

Our values of ‘Do the Right Thing, Excel Together and Put Customers First’ are at the heart of what matters most to us, and our Core Capabilities, ‘Building Trust, Accountability, Effective Communication, Customer Focus, and Proactive Safety & Security’ are what every employee needs to know and do to be most impactful at Amtrak. By living the Amtrak values, focusing on our capabilities, and actively embracing and fostering diverse ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives, together we will honor our past and make Amtrak a company of the future.

Job Summary
The Senior Principal Architect is responsible for providing architecture services to ensure portfolio technology investments are in alignment with corporate goals and its ability to move towards the future in an evolving business environment. As a Digital Technology expert, this role will utilize communication, influence, guidance, and governance processes to maximize return on technology investment, and reduce time to capability, while minimizing operational costs. The Senior Principal Architect will use strategic thinking to evolve Architecture and the Business of Technology as a disciplined, data-driven, and measurable practice—producing repeatability, continuity, benchmarking, and auditability at scale.
 
As part of the DT architecture team the Senior Principal Architect will be responsible for shaping the architecture practice itself—not just individual solutions—across a team of 20–30 architects. The role’s primary value lies in driving consistency, governance, and long-term sustainability in a regulated environment. 
 
Essential Functions:

• Set up the architectural vision for core architecture practice capabilities and aligning patterns to allow for consistency and reuse
• Define enterprise principles, patterns and guidance that help in technology data capabilities, platforms and infrastructure, how applications are built, deployed, and maintained to align with strategic needs and maximizing technology investments
• Provide Oversight and Governance processes for establishing and maintaining enterprise architecture standards, patterns, and decision frameworks (ADR), while ensuring compliance without slowing delivery.
• Define and maintain the enterprise architecture standards library, including approved solution patterns, reference architectures, and anti-patterns, ensuring alignment with industry best practices and regulatory obligations.
• Operate and continuously improve the architecture review process—Design Reviews, Architecture Review Board (ARB) participation, and lightweight fitness function checks—ensuring governance is an enabler rather than a bottleneck.
• Drive adoption of architecture tooling, reusable patterns, and alignment with Agile/SAFe to improve delivery efficiency and reuse.
• Provide practice leadership, acting as a mentor and thought leader, elevating architect capability, defining role clarity, and influencing outcomes through credibility rather than hierarchy and using influence rather than authority
• Effectively communicate to group leadership, management and teams throughout the company

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent combination of education, training and/or relevant experience.
• Plus 9 years of relevant work experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent combination of education, training and/or relevant experience.
• Plus 11 years of relevant work experience.
• Track record of designing and implementing architecture governance frameworks that balance rigor with delivery agility.
   

Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

• Core competencies centered on architectural thinking, governance design, and influencing skills, combined with deep expertise in cloud, integration, data, and regulatory environments.
• Strong executive communication, mentoring, risk/technical debt management, and the ability to balance rigor with agility.
• Strong expertise in architectural practices: Architectural Decision Records, Build vs Buy analysis, Business Capability Maps, Value-Stream Analysis, Solution Architecture work products, Architecture Governance
• Familiarity with Enterprise Architecture toolsets (LeanIX, Ardoq, Orbus, etc.) and low-code platforms (ex: Microsoft Power Automate) to create architecture governance workflows and data models

The salary/hourly range is $149,400.00 – $193,644.00. Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, certifications, etc. Depending on an employee’s assigned worksite or location, Amtrak may consider a geo-pay differential to be applied to the employee’s base salary. Amtrak may offer additional incentive and pay programs to recognize and reward our employees, including a short-term incentive bonus based upon factors such as individual and company performance that is commensurate with the level of the position. 

Learn more about our benefits offerings here.

Requisition ID:166620

Work Arrangement:06-Onsite 4/5 Days Click here for more information about work arrangements at Amtrak.
Relocation Offered:No
Travel Requirements:Up to 25%

You power our progress through your performance.

We want your work at Amtrak to be more than a job. We want your career at Amtrak to be a fulfilling experience where you find challenging work, rewarding opportunities, respect among colleagues, and attractive compensation. Amtrak maintains a culture that values high performance and recognizes individual employee contributions.

Amtrak is committed to a safe workplace free of drugs and alcohol. All Amtrak positions requires a pre-employment background check that includes prior employment verification, a criminal history check and a pre-employment drug screen.

Candidates who test positive for marijuana will be disqualified, regardless of any state or local statute, ordinance, regulation, or other law that legalizes or decriminalizes the use or possession of marijuana, whether for medical, recreational, or other use. Amtrak's pre-employment drug testing program is administered in accordance with DOT regulations and applicable law.

In accordance with DOT regulations (49 CFR § 40.25), Amtrak is required to obtain prior drug and alcohol testing records for applicants/employees intending to perform safety-sensitive duties for covered Department of Transportation positions. If an applicant/employee refuses to provide written consent for Amtrak to obtain these records, the individual will not be permitted to perform safety-sensitive functions.

In accordance with federal law governing security checks of covered individuals for providers of public transportation (Title 6 U.S.C. §1143), Amtrak is required to screen applicants for any permanent or interim disqualifying criminal offenses.

Note that any education requirement listed above may be deemed satisfied if you have an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.

Amtrak is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race/color, to include traits historically associated with race, including but not limited to, hair texture and hairstyles such as braids, locks and twists, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions, such as lactation), national origin/ethnicity, disability (intellectual, mental and physical), veteran status, marital status, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, genetic information, citizenship or any other personal characteristics protected by law.