Director - Architecture & Platforms

Director - Architecture & Platforms

When our square shaped burgers made their first sizzle on the scene more than 50 years ago, people knew our approach wasn't like any other. Same goes for the way we support our employees. Our culture of openness, flexibility, and inclusiveness allows everybody to flourish in their own way. If you're looking for a career where you can be part of the action as we continue to grow our iconic brand We got you!

The Wendy's Technology Team is the proud owner of all platforms, services, and channels that power digital engagement for millions of customers every day. We are passionate technologists who continuously pursue architecture that drives business agility and enables measurable outcomes. We are building modern digital platforms that accelerate delivery, allow teams to test ideas rapidly and safely, and deliver personalized guest experiences at scale.

This role leads platform engineering, enterprise architecture, and domain architecture (including application, infrastructure, and network) and is responsible for shaping and executing the strategy for Wendy's digital, restaurant, and enterprise platforms, as well as governing Enterprise Architecture practices and technology onboarding. The director will hire and grow top talent, guide cross-functional technical alignment, and manage critical technology partnerships.

The platform organization supports Wendy's technology ecosystem by delivering foundational components such as service frameworks, logging, messaging, data infrastructure, monitoring, and deployment pipeline automation. This leader will oversee the evolution of Wendy's delivery platform to meet the demands of the digital marketing strategy, enterprise modernization, and restaurant operational transformation.

The Director will proactively collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to ensure that the platform and architectural direction align with Wendy's integrated technology roadmap and long-term business goals.

This role is heavily technical and requires hands-on experience delivering technical solutions and designing cloud-focused architectures. They pair strong business acumen with the ability to partner effectively across both technical and non-technical teams, bringing a holistic approach to strategy, execution, and stakeholder engagement.

Responsibilities:

• Define and execute the strategy for development of a global digital platform, including the migration from AWS to GCP
• Define and execute the guiding principles and best practices for platform engineering (Infrastructure as Code, chaos engineering, etc.)
• Manage key vendor relationships and contract performance
• Evangelize business benefits and impact of the platform as well as the value of modern delivery and platform engineering practices (e.g. increased stability, reduced operational complexity, improved time to market); foster environments with stronger levels of trust that give more autonomy to technologists
• Partner with enterprise architects and portfolio management in developing technology roadmaps, including effectively evaluating buy/build/borrow decisions.
• Design and build the platform services and IaC capabilities (e.g. logging, container orchestration, caching, databases, messaging, secrets management, etc.)
• Design and build the delivery infrastructure (e.g. CI/CD system for infrastructure repaving, infrastructure configuration, and infrastructure as code deployments)

What We Expect From You:

• Bachelor's degree (B.S.) in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, including 6+ years proven experience as a technology architect and 3+ years managing technology vendors
• Subject-matter expertise in:- Delivery infrastructure build out (e.g. CI, deployment orchestration, observability, and A/B test infrastructure)- Modern security practices- Modern API platform design- Modern data architectures (e.g. event-driven architectures, stream processing, and integrating real-time analytics into customer applications)- Cloud native solutions for platform and architecture
• Technical skills in:- Cloud-native architecture principles- Containerization and PaaS approaches and tools (e.g. CloudFoundry, OpenShift, Kubernetes)- Domain-driven factoring of service interfaces using domain modeling, even storming, and other techniques
• You need to be able to:- Support organizational changes to drive capability development, restructuring toward product-centric team models, and transitioning to modern agile SDLC practices- Communicate technical decisions to non-technical audiences and build consensus around them- Articulate the value of foundational technology approaches to business executives- Build strong stakeholder relationships and foster interaction at different levels- Bring projects to successful completion through political sensitivity

Wendy's was built on the premise, "Quality is our Recipe," which remains the guidepost of the Wendy's system. Today, Wendy's and its franchisees employ hundreds of thousands of people across more than 7,000 restaurants worldwide with a vision of becoming the world's most thriving and beloved restaurant brand.

The base pay range for this position is listed below. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and budget for the open position and also may vary depending on the candidate's job-related knowledge, skills, and experience, among other relevant factors. This range does not include an estimated value for any benefits, bonus, or other incentives that may be applicable based on position.* The target annual bonus for this role is 25% of annualized base salary, based on actual company and personal performance. Director and above roles are also eligible to participate in the Company's long-term incentive award program.

Our square burgers make us different and so do our benefits! Our restaurant support roles are eligible for a wide array of benefits, including things such as parental leave, free EAP sessions, company 401k match and other great offerings. For more details about our benefits, including an overview of eligibility and terms for certain benefits, please visit our benefits website, www.wendysbenefits.com.*

Pay Range: $142,000 - $256,000 Annually

Wendy's is an equal employment opportunity employer who may provide reasonable accommodation to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.