Enterprise Architect - Commercial Lending

Job Summary As an Enterprise Architect for Commercial Lending at M&T Bank, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the organization’s technology strategy, landscape, and roadmap. In this role, you will serve as an integrative force across business and technology domains, establish trusted advisor partnerships with senior leaders, and drive the architecture of complex, high-priority initiatives that deliver significant business value. Your work will influence large-scale programs that are critical to the bank’s long-term success, ensuring scalable, resilient, and forward-looking solutions. Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Planning: Define and evolve enterprise architecture strategies and roadmaps that align business priorities, regulatory requirements, and long-term technology vision.
• High-Level Design: Develop high-level architectural models and frameworks that support secure, scalable, and resilient solutions across the bank, aligned with the strategic direction established by Enterprise Architecture function.
• Detailed Solutions Architecture: Translate strategic objectives into actionable solution architectures that provide clear direction to delivery and engineering teams.
• Regulatory & Risk Alignment: Ensure architectural solutions comply with financial industry regulations, internal risk frameworks, and data privacy standards, supporting auditability and operational integrity.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with business leaders, product owners, and technology teams to ensure architectural alignment across client services, digital platforms, and core banking systems.
• Implementation Leadership: Provide architectural oversight and governance throughout the solution delivery lifecycle, ensuring adherence to enterprise standards and successful on-time execution of high-impact initiatives.
• Trusted Advisor: Build strong relationships with management, providing expert advice and insights to support decision-making.
• Communication: Communicate complex architectural concepts clearly and persuasively to both technical and non-technical audiences, fostering alignment and informed decision-making.
• Vendor & Partner Engagement: Collaborate with external technology providers and service partners to ensure solutions meet enterprise standards for performance, cost-effectiveness, and agility in a highly regulated environment. Required Skills
• Strategic Thinking: Ability to align technology architecture with business strategy, identifying opportunities to drive value, efficiency, and innovation across complex financial services ecosystems.
• Business Acumen: Deep understanding of financial services, particularly the needs in the Commercial Banking sector, with the ability to translate those needs into effective architectural solutions.
• Enterprise Architecture Expertise: Proficiency in developing and applying enterprise architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman) to guide technology planning, governance, and execution.
• Solution Design: Skilled in designing end-to-end solutions that are scalable, secure, and aligned with enterprise standards, while addressing both current and future-state business capabilities. Ensure interoperability between systems along the entire value stream of commercial lending from opportunity to payoff.
• Technology Integration: Experience integrating diverse systems, platforms, and data sources to create cohesive, interoperable solutions that support seamless client experiences and operational efficiency.
• Risk and Compliance Awareness: Strong grasp of regulatory and risk considerations in financial services, with the ability to architect solutions that meet compliance, audit, and data governance requirements.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Proven ability to collaborate with senior business and technology leaders, facilitating alignment, managing expectations, and influencing strategic decisions.
• Communication and Visualization: Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex architectural concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences through clear documentation, presentations, and visual models.
• Change Leadership: Ability to lead through ambiguity, drive consensus, and support organizational change as part of large-scale transformation initiatives.
• Product Operating Model: Experience working within Agile product delivery organizations and partnering with product managers, product owners, and engineering teams to define technology strategy and roadmaps.
• Critical Thinking Skills: A creative and analytical approach to diagnosing and resolving technical challenges.
• Lending Platform Strategy: Lead technology strategy and evaluation activities for commercial lending platforms supporting origination, underwriting, servicing, portfolio management, treasury management, collateral management, and customer relationship management.
• Continuous Learning: A passion for staying updated on financial services related technologies and their rapidly evolving tools, features, and best practices. Expected Knowledge
• Strong knowledge of financial services industry domains, particularly commercial banking services including commercial loans, lines of credit, leveraged finance, syndications, participations, leases, equipment finance, dealer floor plan, and asset-based lending.
• Understanding of modern technology architectures, including cloud, microservices, APIs, data platforms, and integration patterns
• Awareness of cybersecurity principles, data privacy standards, and secure architecture practices
• Familiarity with business capability modeling, value stream mapping, and other business architecture techniques
• Knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements relevant to financial institutions (e.g., FFIEC, SOX, GLBA, GDPR)
• Proficiency in using architectural modeling tools and documentation standards
• Knowledge of IT governance, portfolio management, and enterprise change management processes
• Understanding of data architecture concepts, including data governance, master data management, and analytics enablement
• Familiarity with emerging technologies and their potential impact on financial services
• AI and Intelligent Automation: Understanding of artificial intelligence, generative AI, machine learning, intelligent document processing, and workflow automation technologies and their application within banking and commercial lending.
• Data and Analytics: Experience defining business data domains, data governance requirements, analytical platforms, and integration patterns that support lending, risk, finance, and regulatory reporting.
• Experience in vendor and third-party solution evaluation, selection, and integration strategies
• Awareness of agile, DevOps, and product-centric delivery models and how architecture supports them
• Experience with commercial lending and adjacent platforms, such as nCino, AFS, Bottomline, Salesforce, Moody's, FIS, PrecisionLender, Jack Henry, and Abrigo, as well as treasury management, commercial onboarding, KYC, customer relationship management, collateral, construction loan administration, equipment finance, and dealer floor plan systems. Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree and 7 years of relevant work experience, or in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 11 year's higher education and/or relevant work experience
• 7 or more years of experience in developing and integrating applications using relevant software architecture principles and patterns
• 10+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, software engineering, or technology leadership roles, including 3+ years supporting Commercial Lending technology within a financial institution.
• Knowledge of institutional banking products and services including capital markets, investment management, structured finance, and M&A
• Experience in driving and delivering innovation within the realm of financial services
• Working knowledge of architecture diagra