Principal Architect – GitHub & Azure DevOps Platform Engineering

About the job

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Position Summary We are seeking a Principal Architect – GitHub & Azure DevOps Platform Engineering to lead the strategy, architecture, engineering, governance, and modernization of our enterprise software delivery platforms. This role is accountable for the current and future state of GitHub Enterprise, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, software supply chain security, artifact management, and developer productivity services across the organization. As a senior technical leader, you will help drive the evolution of our software delivery ecosystem in support of enterprise modernization initiatives, including platform transformation efforts, adoption of modern engineering practices, and the establishment of scalable self-service developer capabilities. You will work closely with engineering, architecture, security, infrastructure, application teams, and executive leadership to define and execute the long-term roadmap for enterprise DevOps and developer experience platforms. This role is ideal for a hands-on architect who enjoys solving complex technical challenges, establishing engineering standards, mentoring teams, and influencing technical strategy across a large enterprise.

Key Responsibilities Platform Strategy & Architecture

- Own the technical vision, roadmap, and architecture for GitHub Enterprise, Azure DevOps, Nexus Repository, and related CI/CD platforms.

- Define the target-state software delivery architecture, standards, governance models, and platform operating model.

- Drive modernization of software delivery capabilities, including migration from legacy CI/CD tooling and platforms to GitHub and Azure DevOps.

- Lead the migration strategy and execution approach for enterprise-scale CI/CD transformation initiatives.

- Establish reference architectures, reusable patterns, and engineering standards for application delivery across diverse technology stacks.

- Partner with enterprise architecture and engineering leaders to align platform capabilities with broader modernization and cloud strategies. Developer Experience & CI/CD Engineering

- Design and implement enterprise CI/CD standards, reusable workflows, templates, and automation frameworks.

- Establish scalable, self-service onboarding capabilities for development teams.

- Define standards for source control management, branching strategies, pull request workflows, approvals, repository governance, and release management.

- Drive adoption of GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps Pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, and modern software delivery practices.

- Improve developer productivity through automation, platform engineering, and developer experience improvements.

- Create and maintain technical documentation, standards, engineering playbooks, and onboarding materials. Platform Modernization & Migration

- Lead migration initiatives involving: - Legacy CI/CD platforms to GitHub and Azure DevOps

- Pipeline modernization and standardization

- Repository consolidation and governance improvements

- Modern artifact and package management practices

- Develop migration factory approaches including inventory, complexity assessment, wave planning, automation, testing, and cutover strategies.

- Define success metrics and operational KPIs for platform transformation initiatives. Security, Compliance & Software Supply Chain

- Embed security, compliance, and risk management throughout the software delivery lifecycle.

- Establish standards for: - Secrets management

- Identity and access management

- OIDC and modern authentication

- Software supply chain security

- Dependency management

- SBOM generation

- Artifact integrity and provenance

- Auditability and traceability

- Partner with security and risk teams to ensure platforms meet regulatory, compliance, and governance requirements.

- Drive adoption of DevSecOps practices and secure-by-design engineering patterns. Reliability, Operations & Observability

- Establish platform reliability standards, operational procedures, monitoring strategies, and support models.

- Design scalable and resilient architectures for GitHub runners, Azure DevOps agents, repositories, package management, and supporting infrastructure.

- Define observability standards, dashboards, alerting, and operational KPIs.

- Lead incident resolution, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement efforts for platform services.

- Drive automation to reduce manual operational overhead and improve platform scalability. Technical Leadership

- Mentor and coach engineers, architects, and platform teams.

- Lead design reviews, architecture governance, and engineering standards discussions.

- Influence technical direction across engineering organizations.

- Serve as the primary technical advisor for platform modernization, DevOps strategy, and developer productivity initiatives.

- Collaborate with application and platform engineering teams to shape the future-state GitHub and Azure DevOps ecosystem, including reusable patterns, frameworks, pipelines, and self-service developer capabilities.

- Foster a culture of engineering excellence, automation, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing.

Required Qualifications

- 12+ years of experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or software delivery platforms.

- Proven experience architecting and operating enterprise-scale GitHub Enterprise and Azure DevOps environments.

- Deep expertise in CI/CD architecture, pipeline engineering, and software delivery modernization.

- Experience leading large-scale platform transformation and migration initiatives.

- Strong understanding of source control management, repository governance, release management, and software development lifecycle practices.

- Hands-on experience with GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps Pipelines, reusable workflows, templates, and automation frameworks.

- Strong scripting and automation experience with PowerShell, Python, Bash, or similar technologies.

- Experience implementing Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Bicep, Ansible, or similar tools.

- Experience operating artifact management platforms such as Nexus Repository or equivalent solutions.

- Strong understanding of software supply chain security, secrets management, dependency management, and DevSecOps principles.

- Experience designing highly available, resilient, and scalable platform architectures.

- Strong communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence both technical and executive audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience within highly regulated enterprise environments.

- Experience with GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

- Experience with Azure cloud services, identity, governance, networking, and security capabilities.

- Experience with container platforms and Kubernetes-based workloads.

- Familiarity with GitOps and modern deployment methodologies.

- Experience with enterprise observability and monitoring platforms.

- Experience supporting multiple application technology stacks including .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, containerized workloads, and mainframe-integrated delivery pipelines.

- Industry certifications related to GitHub, Azure, DevOps, cloud architecture, security, or platform engineering.

Success Measures Successful candidates will:

- Deliver a clear enterprise roadmap for GitHub, Azure DevOps, Nexus, and developer platform services.

- Accelerate modernization and migration initiatives across software delivery platforms.

- Improve developer productivity through standardized and automated CI/CD capabilities.

- Reduce platform risk through enhanced security, governance, and compliance controls.

- Establish scalable self-service engineering capabilities.

- Drive measurable improvements in platform reliability, operational efficiency, and software delivery performance.

- Serve as a trusted technical leader and strategic advisor for software engineering, platform engineering, and enterprise modernization initiatives.

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation