Job Description

One of the best-known names in cruising, Princess is the world’s leading international premium cruise line and tour company, carrying millions of guests each year to hundreds of destinations around the globe.  We give our guests the Medallion Class experience others simply can’t. The Love Boat promises something for everyone. 

The Principal Enterprise Architect, Platform Automation, Operations, AI, and AWS serves as the organization’s highest-level individual-contributor authority and enterprise-wide technical strategist for cloud platforms, platform automation, operational architecture, artificial intelligence, and AWS. The role defines the long-range architectural vision, target-state strategy, governing principles, and enterprise guardrails that direct technology decisions and investments across multiple business and technology functions.

Operating with substantial autonomy and broad enterprise mandate, this position addresses the organization’s most complex, ambiguous, and consequential technology challenges, including matters for which established solutions, precedents, or industry practices may not exist. The role integrates business strategy, operating priorities, technology capabilities, security, resilience, regulatory requirements, financial considerations, and emerging market developments to establish solutions with long-term, enterprise-wide impact.

The Principal Enterprise Architect provides authoritative direction for enterprise architecture decisions spanning AWS cloud services, platform engineering, infrastructure and application modernization, automation, DevSecOps, reliability engineering, observability, AI, GenAI, machine learning, and AIOps. The position establishes the architectural frameworks and decision criteria used by architects, engineers, technology leaders, strategic partners, and delivery teams across the organization.

As a trusted advisor to executive and senior technology leadership, the role shapes enterprise technology strategy, investment priorities, risk posture, and transformation roadmaps. The position challenges existing models, introduces new architectural approaches, and resolves competing priorities across business units and technology domains to deliver scalable, secure, resilient, cost-effective, and strategically differentiated enterprise capabilities.

Success in this role requires exceptional professional mastery, recognized authority across multiple advanced technology disciplines, and a sustained record of defining and leading highly complex enterprise transformations. The role provides technical leadership through influence, establishes expectations for the broader architecture and engineering community, and elevates enterprise capability by mentoring senior architects, distinguished engineers, and technology leaders

Here’s a summary of what Princess is looking for in a Principal Enterprise Architect. Is this you? 

Responsibilities:

Enterprise Architecture Strategy and Authority

• Own and define the enterprise target-state architecture, multi-year technology strategy, and integrated roadmaps across cloud, platform automation, operations, AI, and AWS.

• Serve as the final enterprise architecture authority for the assigned technology domains, resolving the most complex cross-functional architectural issues and exceptions.

• Establish enterprise principles, reference architectures, decision frameworks, governance requirements, and non-negotiable architectural guardrails.

• Translate enterprise business strategy into long-range technology capabilities, sequencing, dependencies, and investment priorities.

• Anticipate disruptive technology, market, security, regulatory, and operating-model developments and determine their implications for the enterprise.

• Govern significant architectural decisions whose consequences extend across business units, platforms, products, and multi-year transformation programs.

AWS Cloud Strategy and Enterprise Modernization

• Define the enterprise AWS strategy and modernization agenda, including target operating models, adoption patterns, platform standards, migration pathways, and optimization priorities.

• Establish authoritative cloud architecture standards governing scalability, availability, resilience, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, performance, interoperability, financial efficiency, and lifecycle management.

• Direct the architectural integration of cloud, infrastructure, application, security, data, and operational capabilities across the enterprise.

• Resolve unprecedented or highly ambiguous cloud architecture challenges with significant implications for enterprise risk, continuity, customer experience, and long-term investment.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and external market developments and determine where they should materially alter enterprise strategy, architecture, or investment direction.

Platform Automation and Engineering Transformation

• Define the enterprise platform engineering and automation strategy spanning Infrastructure as Code, DevOps, DevSecOps, CI/CD, orchestration, policy as code, and self-service engineering capabilities.

• Establish shared platform patterns and enterprise engineering standards that materially improve speed, reliability, security, scalability, and developer productivity.

• Lead the architectural transformation of fragmented or manually intensive operating models into standardized, automated, policy-driven enterprise capabilities.

• Set the technical direction for reusable enterprise platforms and services adopted by multiple engineering, infrastructure, application, security, and operational organizations.

• Establish outcome measures and governance mechanisms to ensure platform investments deliver sustained enterprise value.

Operational Resilience and Reliability 

• Define the enterprise architecture for operational resilience, service reliability, observability, incident management, disaster recovery, business continuity, capacity, and technology risk.

• Establish enterprise reliability principles, service expectations, and architectural controls for business-critical platforms and services.

• Determine the architectural response to systemic risk, recurring service degradation, material control gaps, and cross-platform dependencies.

• Direct strategic remediation approaches for issues that could materially affect business continuity, customer experience, regulatory compliance, financial performance, or enterprise reputation.

• Ensure operational architecture supports both immediate service obligations and long-term enterprise resilience.

AI, GenAI, and Technology Innovation | 10%

• Define the enterprise architecture strategy, governance framework, and foundational platforms for AI, GenAI, machine learning, MLOps, and AIOps.

• Establish enterprise standards for secure, responsible, scalable, and economically sustainable adoption of AI-enabled capabilities.

• Identify and shape enterprise use cases capable of materially transforming technology operations, engineering productivity, decision-making, and business performance.

• Resolve novel architectural, security, integration, data, governance, and operational challenges associated with emerging AI technologies.

• Advise executive leadership on the enterprise implications, opportunities, risks, and investment priorities associated with rapidly evolving technologies.

Executive Advisory and Enterprise Technical Leadership | 5%

• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to executive and senior leadership on enterprise technology strategy, investment alternatives, architectural risk, and transformation priorities.

• Present complex technology issues, strategic alternatives, material risks, and recommendations in business and financial terms.

• Shape and challenge enterprise investment decisions involving cloud, automation, infrastructure, operations, resilience, security, and AI.

• Lead enterprise architecture councils, strategic design reviews, and cross-functional decision forums for the assigned domains.

• Mentor senior architects, principal engineers, engineering leaders, and other advanced technical professionals.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Scope: The position has enterprise-wide and long-term scope, spanning the architecture, modernization, automation, operation, resilience, security, and evolution of technology platforms supporting critical business capabilities. Its authority and influence extend across business units, technology organizations, operating environments, strategic partners, and major transformation programs. The role sets architectural direction across AWS cloud services, infrastructure, applications, platform engineering, DevSecOps, automation, observability, reliability engineering, AI, GenAI, machine learning, and AIOps. Decisions made by this position establish frameworks and constraints for significant technology investments, multi-year roadmaps, operating models, platform adoption, risk management, and engineering practices. The position works across organizational boundaries to reconcile business, technical, financial, security, regulatory, and operational priorities. Its recommendations and decisions may affect employees, customers, partners, technology teams, critical services, and business operations across the enterprise. The role operates with broad latitude and minimal technical oversight. It determines the appropriate architectural methods, decision frameworks, technologies, and interventions required to achieve enterprise outcomes. Matters escalated to this position are typically distinguished by their strategic importance, ambiguity, cross-enterprise reach, material risk, or absence of established precedent.

• Problem Solving: The position resolves the organization’s most complex and consequential technology architecture challenges, frequently involving conditions for which established methods, precedents, or readily available solutions do not exist. Problems typically span multiple technology domains, business units, operating environments, strategic initiatives, and stakeholder groups and may involve significant operational, financial, cybersecurity, regulatory, resilience, customer, or reputational implications. The role independently structures highly ambiguous issues, identifies underlying enterprise constraints, evaluates interconnected risks and dependencies, and develops original approaches that establish precedent for future decisions. Solutions require exceptional depth and breadth of technical expertise combined with enterprise business judgment, financial awareness, external market insight, and the ability to anticipate long-term consequences. The Principal Enterprise Architect evaluates competing strategic alternatives and makes authoritative recommendations regarding architecture direction, technology adoption, platform consolidation, modernization sequencing, build-versus-buy decisions, operating models, investment priorities, and risk acceptance. The position must balance immediate operational requirements against long-term enterprise scalability, security, resilience, interoperability, cost, and strategic differentiation. The role is expected to challenge established assumptions, identify systemic issues not evident at the project or functional level, and develop new architectural concepts, frameworks, standards, or operating approaches. Decisions and solutions established by this position become reference points for other architects, engineers, leaders, and delivery organizations.

• Impact: The role has material and enduring impact on enterprise strategy, technology investment, operating resilience, cybersecurity posture, engineering effectiveness, cost structure, innovation capacity, and customer and employee experience. Architectural direction established by this position influences multi-year transformation roadmaps, major technology investments, critical platforms, and the standards by which enterprise solutions are designed, implemented, governed, and operated. The position is accountable for ensuring that enterprise architecture decisions produce measurable improvements in scalability, reliability, security, resilience, speed, productivity, technology economics, and business agility. Errors in judgment or architectural direction could create significant long-term cost, technology risk, operational disruption, regulatory exposure, or constraints on strategic growth. Conversely, successful execution enables the organization to modernize critical technology capabilities, reduce systemic risk and technical complexity, improve operational performance, accelerate delivery, optimize material investments, and responsibly adopt emerging technologies at enterprise scale.

• Leadership: The Principal Enterprise Architect is an enterprise technical leader and recognized authority whose leadership is exercised primarily through expertise, judgment, credibility, and influence rather than formal reporting relationships. The role establishes architectural direction and professional standards for architects, engineers, technology leaders, delivery teams, and strategic partners across the organization. The position leads cross-functional architecture and transformation efforts involving executive stakeholders, business leaders, infrastructure, cloud engineering, platform engineering, operations, cybersecurity, application development, data and AI, finance, risk, vendors, and other enterprise functions. It resolves competing priorities, creates alignment across senior stakeholders, and secures commitment to enterprise decisions that may require significant change to established technologies, investments, processes, or operating models. The role serves as a trusted advisor to executive leadership and is expected to shape decisions at the highest levels of the organization. It provides independent, authoritative perspectives on technology strategy, architecture risk, investment alternatives, modernization priorities, and emerging technologies, including respectfully challenging proposed direction when it conflicts with long-term enterprise interests.The Principal Enterprise Architect develops organizational capability by mentoring senior and principal-level architects, engineers, and technology leaders; establishing communities of practice; setting standards of technical excellence; and building succession depth across critical architecture disciplines. The role elevates the quality of decision-making across the enterprise by creating reusable frameworks, reference architecture, and governance mechanisms.

For all roles:

• Knowledge: Understanding of workplace policies and procedures / Familiarity with team collaboration tools and techniques.

• Skills: Strong time management and organizational skills

• Abilities: Ability to maintain reliable and consistent attendance / Capacity to be punctual and meet deadlines / Ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues and work as part of a team / Demonstrated professionalism in all interactions and tasks..

Essential/Minimum Qualifications:

Knowledge and technical mastery

• Recognized enterprise authority with exceptional mastery across multiple advanced technology disciplines, including AWS cloud architecture, platform engineering, automation, operational resilience, and AI-enabled technologies.

• Expert knowledge of enterprise architecture methods, technology strategy, operating models, architecture governance, portfolio rationalization, and large-scale modernization.

• Demonstrated ability to integrate cloud, infrastructure, applications, cybersecurity, data, AI, operations, and financial considerations into cohesive enterprise strategies.

• Expert understanding of systemic technology risk, resilience, cybersecurity, regulatory requirements, architectural economics, and business continuity.

• Demonstrated ability to develop original frameworks and solutions for complex technology challenges where established precedent is limited or absent.

• Leadership capabilities

• Demonstrated success shaping enterprise strategy and materially influencing executive-level technology and investment decisions.

• Ability to create alignment and commitment among senior stakeholders with competing business, financial, operational, security, and technology priorities.

• Proven success establishing architecture standards and governance adopted across multiple business and technology organizations.

• Exceptional ability to communicate highly complex technology matters in clear business, financial, operational, and risk terms.

• Demonstrated success mentoring principal-level professionals and elevating technical capability across an enterprise.

Essential experience required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.

• Master’s degree preferred.

• 15 or more years of progressively responsible experience, including sustained accountability for enterprise architecture, cloud platforms, infrastructure, operations, platform engineering, or technology strategy.

• Extensive experience operating as a principal or equivalent enterprise-level architect, with demonstrated authority across multiple complex technology domains.

• Demonstrated success defining and leading multi-year, enterprise-scale cloud, platform, automation, resilience, or AI transformations.

• Demonstrated experience advising executive leadership on significant technology strategy, investment, risk, and modernization decisions.

• Proven experience establishing enterprise architecture strategies, standards, governance frameworks, and reference architectures with broad organizational adoption.

• Evidence of recognized expertise through industry contribution, professional leadership, patents, publications, speaking engagements, standards participation, or equivalent externally recognized technical accomplishments is highly desirable.

Travel: Less than 25% non-shipboard travel likely

Work Conditions:  Work primarily in a climate-controlled environment with minimal safety/health hazard potential.

Physical Demands: Work beyond normal business hours or on weekends may be required occasionally to support business needs, projects, or operations.

**This position is classified as “hybrid.”  As an in-office role, it requires employees to work from a designated Princess location Mondays through Thursdays.  On Fridays you can work from home.

Princess provides comprehensive and innovative benefits to meet your needs, including:

What You Can Expect

• Cruise and Travel Privileges for You and Your Family 
• Health Benefits 
• 401(k)  
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan  
• Training & Professional Development 
• Tuition & Professional Certification Reimbursement 
• Rewards & Incentives  

Our Culture… Stronger Together

Our highest responsibility and top priority is compliance, environmental protection and the health, safety and well-being of our guests, the people in the communities we touch and serve, and our shipboard and shoreside employees.  Please visit our site to learn more about our Culture Essentials, Corporate Vision Statement and our Core Values at: princess.com/en-us/company-information

Princess is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. 

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Princess will provide reasonable accommodation with the application process, upon your request, as required to comply with applicable laws.  If you have a disability and require assistance in this application process, please contact careers@carnival.com. 

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