Jobs › Northwestern Mutual

This position has closed. Northwestern Mutual first posted this listing on Aug 28, 2017. It is still on their careers page, but a job that old is almost certainly not being filled, so we took it down on Oct 4, 2026. The interview prep below is still useful, and there are similar open roles at the bottom of this page.

Sr. Enterprise Architect

Northwestern Mutual · Milwaukee, WI · Full time · Enterprise Architecture1

Posted Aug 28, 2017 · We last checked this listing on Oct 4, 2026

Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

About your past

Tell me about an architecture decision you got wrong.

What they are checking: Whether they can name one, since architects who cannot are expensive.

How do you bring engineering teams with you on a standard they did not choose?

What they are checking: Influence without authority, which is the whole job of an architect.

What would you do

The posting offers a high degree of freedom over the roadmap. What would you do with it?

What they are checking: Whether they arrive with a point of view, which is what that sentence is asking for.

This is a company nearly 160 years old. How does that change how you would approach change?

What they are checking: Whether they respect what exists or intend to replace it.

About the work

Tell me about a migration from on premise into a public cloud that you architected.

What they are checking: The posting names this directly, and it is very different from building cloud-native from scratch.

Which cloud platforms do you know deeply, and where are you shallower?

What they are checking: The posting asks for more than one, and honesty about the second one is the useful answer.

Walk me through how you would run a strategy that keeps both data centers and cloud.

What they are checking: The hybrid estate the posting describes, which is harder than either alone.

Which of Terraform, Packer, Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Kubernetes and OpenShift have you used in anger?

What they are checking: The posting calls hands-on experience a must, so this separates used from read about.

How do you build automation that is triggered by events without opening a security hole?

What they are checking: The posting pairs automation with secure practice, which most teams treat separately.

Talk me through key management and transport security in a multi-cloud estate.

What they are checking: Cloud connectivity security, which the posting is specific about.

Practice this interview out loud.

Offer builds a real interview for this exact role at Northwestern Mutual from your resume and this job description, asks the questions one at a time, and tells you what landed. The first one is free.

Practice this out loud

The full job description

As published by Northwestern Mutual.

At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust. That our lives and our work matter. These beliefs launched our company nearly 160 years ago. Today, they're just a few of the reasons why people choose to build careers at Northwestern Mutual. We're strong and growing. In a company with such a long and storied history, this may be the most exciting and important time to be a part of Northwestern Mutual. We're strong, innovative and growing. We invest in our people. We provide opportunities for employees to grow themselves, their career and in turn, our business. We care. We make a positive difference in our communities. Nationally, thousands have benefitted from our support of research and programs to fight childhood cancer. Each year, our Foundation, employees and financial representatives donate time, talent and financial support to causes they're passionate about. We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law. As a member of our Digital Platform team within Enterprise Architecture, you would play a key role in Northwestern Mutual’s digital transformation, including application rationalization, and modernization. As we recently started our digital transformation journey, you will have a high degree of freedom to influence the roadmap. The ideal candidate will have: • Deep understanding of more than one public cloud platform (AWS, Azure, Google) and experienced in delivering a multiple data center strategy that incorporates both cloud and on premise compute. Experience in migrating on premise systems to public cloud a plus. • Experience with infrastructure as code and understanding of automation through triggered events either through code commits or other infrastructure conditions including developing secure practices in automation. • Hands on experience with tools and technologies like Terraform, Packer, Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Kubernetes, OpenShift a must. • Deep understanding of cloud connectivity including transport security, storage security, key management and networking concerns. Experience with a KMS and NGINX/OpenResty a plus. • Broad knowledge of basic compute capabilities including storage, networking and compute in on premise, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS deployment models. • Experienced in architecting, designing and building scalable and performant cloud infrastructure for solutions with high availability, extreme reliability, service availability, and patching without service downtime. • Prior experience of selecting and transition to production of vendor products including all phases including research, due diligence, qualification, selection, implementation and transition to support. • Experienced in partnering with a diverse team of infrastructure engineers, creating a collaborative and transparent team environment, with a customer first mind set. • Strong presentation and communication skills with a proven ability to engage and influence both technical and non-technical stakeholders, at all level of the organization including senior Management. • Experience with full-lifecycle system deployment, participating in all facets of development (requirements gathering, design, implementation, unit testing, system testing, release and on-going service management) • Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional teams through influence, collaboration, and partnership to deliver solutions that are optimized for the enterprise as opposed to optimizing for individual teams. Role Responsibility • Lead development of designs & patterns • Provide architectural alignment on crucial efforts (design, code, test, deploy) • Identify technology/opportunities that advance our Digital Organization • Direct alignment of tech decisions across the Enterprise with roadmaps and architectural development models • Leads technical initiatives and organizational change across the enterprise • Provides day-today mentoring and coaching to less experienced professionals Functional Skill Set • Broad and deep technical experience, respected by peers • Continually learning & applying new technologies • Can solve technical as well as people/process challenges • Communicate with senior business as well as senior technical leaders • Deals with ambiguity and drives to needed outcomes • Can tie IT capabilities with business needs and goals Interpersonal/Leadership • Change Leader – influences above their level • Moves easily between technical and business audiences • Strong technical and business problem solving skills • Strong sense of ownership and dedication to results Requirements • Must be passionate about creating solutions, and solving complex problems – in the right way, at the right time, and for the right reasons • Experienced with and embraces Lean-Agile principles/DevOps environment • Must be teachable, give and receive feedback, and demonstrate success in their discipline on a consistent and transparent basis • Must be technology-agnostic; should not have a personal agenda or bias around technical decisions. • Experience with Enterprise Architecture best practices and frameworks to include analyzing, designing, developing, deploying and supporting software solutions, and/or infrastructure implementations/upgrades. • Specific technical requirements / platforms will vary • Experience in working with diverse teams and bringing people together to deliver on outcomes despite challenges, ambiguity and adversity • 6-8 years of Enterprise Architecture experience Req ID: 16746 Position Type: Regular Full Time Education Experience: Bachelor's Desired Employment Experience: 6-8 years Licenses/Certifications: FLSA Status: Exempt Posting Date: 08/24/2017