Staff Solution Architect

About the role

Live Oak Bank is a digital bank that serves small business owners across the country. Our groundbreaking spin on service and technology has fueled our mission to be America's Small Business Bank. Our products help customers buy, build, and expand their business, and our high-yield savings and CD products help them grow their hard-earned money. At Live Oak, we never lose sight of the well-being of our people. We believe our employees are the heart of our company. Our commitment to our customers and culture is intertwined, and we seek those who embody and embrace what it takes to empower the American dream. How This Role Impacts Live Oak and Its People The Staff Solution Architect at Live Oak is a senior, judgment driven role focused on guiding the organization through architectural complexity at scale. This role is designed for architects who have lived through growth, tradeoffs , and change in fintech or financial services environments and know that the hardest architectural problems are as much about people and decisions as they are about systems. Reporting to the Director of Enterprise Architecture, this architect operates at the intersection of business strategy, technology, and organizational design. Rather than owning individual components or producing artifacts in isolation, the Staff Solution Architect influences how architectural decisions are made, socialized, and sustained across teams, vendors, and platforms - especially as Live Oak continues to scale and responsibly adopt AI ‑ enabled systems. Success in this role is measured by influence, clarity, and outcomes: aligning teams, navigating ambiguity, and helping the organization ship well-reasoned solutions without slowing momentum. What You'll Do at Live Oak Solution Design & Architecture Lead end-to-end solution architecture for major projects involving complex, multi-system environments and cross-functional business units. Conduct architectural evaluations and analyze the existing technology environment to inform solution design decisions. Define solution prototypes, reference architectures, and integration patterns that ensure consistency, scalability, and maintainability. Evaluate and recommend technologies, platforms, and vendors, balancing innovation with pragmatism and long-term sustainability. Ensure all solution designs comply with enterprise architecture standards, principles, and strategic guidelines. Cross-Functional Orchestration & Collaboration Serve as the connective thread between internal software engineering, data, IT, and infrastructure teams and external vendors, ensuring all parties are aligned on the solution vision. Define collaboration frameworks that bring the right people together at the right time to resolve technical questions and design challenges. Facilitate solution design sessions, technical reviews, and architecture discussions that drive toward clear, well-documented outcomes. Partner closely with project management to align integration strategies with project objectives, timelines, and budgets. Documentation & Communication Tell the story of how individual components come together into a cohesive solution-translating complex technical architectures into clear narratives for diverse audiences including executive leadership, business partners, and engineering teams. Develop and maintain comprehensive solution documentation including architecture diagrams, integration maps, decision records, and technical specifications. Communicate technical aspects, risks, trade-offs, and progress with clarity and confidence to stakeholders at all levels. Delivery & Risk Management Define procedures and processes that ensure successful solution delivery from design through implementation. Identify, evaluate, and mitigate technical risks across the solution lifecycle, including performance, security, and user experience considerations. Oversee solution development to ensure adherence to architectural intent, quality standards, and regulatory requirements. Analyze and address technical and business requirements, ensuring solutions are right-sized for the problem at hand. How You'll Do It By orchestrating-not dictating. You pull the right people into the room, facilitate productive discussions, and synthesize diverse inputs into a clear path forward. By communicating with precision and empathy. You translate technical complexity into language that resonates with engineers, business leaders, and vendors alike, using influence and negotiation to drive alignment. By taking responsibility for projects from inception to completion, managing expectations across a broad set of stakeholders and influencing outcomes without direct authority. By developing innovative problem-framing approaches that enhance efficiency and help teams see challenges from new angles. By maintaining a relentless focus on detail-understanding that the success of a complex solution depends on constant, consistent evaluation of ever