Vice President Group Director, Solutions Architect - Systems and Experience Engineering Greater Chicago, IL Area

Company Description

Digitas is the Networked Experience Agency, built on the vision that we create magnetic experiences that earn the right for brands to exist in human networks. Today, and tomorrow. We deliver Networked Experiences by leveraging comprehensive data, technology, creative, media and strategy capabilities. Digitas delivers ambitious outcomes via unique solutions that include Creative Experiences, Integrated Media, Addressable Relationships, Social Marketing and Total Commerce. Celebrated by AdAge as Data and Insights Agency of the Year, U.S Campaign’s Brand Experience Agency of the Year, Media Network of the Year and celebrated by Forrester and Gartner, Digitas serves the world’s leading brands through a global network comprised of more than 5,500 employees across over 65 offices in 43 countries.

The Digitas culture is made up of fearless, inventive and generous Unicorns of all kinds.

Overview

Vice President Group Director, Solutions Architect - Systems and Experience Engineering

Digitas is seeking a Vice President Group Director, Solutions Architect - Systems and Experience Engineering to accelerate adoption of its bespoke generative AI platform across internal teams and clients. This role partners with various Digitas capabilities to design production-ready, scalable solutions for marketing and experience use cases.

This leader translates ambiguous business problems into practical architectures and guides teams through implementation using AI, automation, APIs/MCPs, orchestration, and pragmatic engineering choices that deliver measurable outcomes.

The role requires product mindset, engineering depth, and client consulting skill, with the ability to influence systems roadmap priorities and communicate effectively with executives and technical teams.

Key Responsibilities:

Partner with Digital Product Managers to translate business problems into feasible delivery approaches; co-lead solution concepting and define the path from concept to production.

Design end-to-end architectures combining AI agents, integrations, APIs, data, automation, and custom application components aligned to approved platform patterns.

Guide architecture of agentic workflows that use structured data and unstructured content.

Identify reusable patterns and convert them into platform features, enablement materials, and reference architectures.

Define non-functional requirements including scalability, performance, reliability, security, auditability, and maintainability.

Contribute to assessing marketing and advertising workflows to identify high-impact opportunities across content operations, campaign execution, analytics, personalization, and measurement.

Lead client sessions to understand business objectives and existing systems to define an appropriate solution approach.

Document client technology stacks, dependencies, data flows, and constraints; translate findings into architecture options and integration strategies.

Collaborate with architects and engineers to integrate with MarTech ecosystems such as CDP/CRM, CMS, tag management, ad platforms, and analytics stacks.

Conduct technology audits and vendor analyses; recommend build-vs-buy paths based on fit, cost, risk, APIs, service constraints, and delivery impact.

Ensure discovery outputs translate into clear technical options, constraints, and architecture decisions.

Provide architecture governance across the SDLC, including reviews and risk management, ensuring implementation aligns to approved solutions and platform patterns.

Provide scoping inputs: assumptions, dependencies, risks, sequencing, staffing, and level-of-effort.

Serve as a senior client-facing technical lead: co-facilitate discovery with Digital Product Managers, lead technical working sessions, deliver architecture playbacks and demos, and communicate tradeoffs clearly.

Explain complex architecture, risks, and tradeoffs for executives, marketers, and engineers.

Build trusted relationships with senior client technology stakeholders and facilitate decisions when business, product, and engineering priorities conflict.

Maintain a clear through-line from proposal to design to delivery.

Stay current on generative AI, agentic patterns, evaluation approaches, and emerging standards; identify opportunities to improve platform capabilities and delivery methods.

Apply responsible AI principles, including privacy, data handling, consent, access controls, governance, auditability, and model limitation awareness.

Define practical AI evaluation approaches for quality, bias, reliability, monitoring, and drift.

Maintain strong organization, time management, and risk mitigation across distributed teams.

Qualifications

We’re looking for strong, impactful work experience, which typically includes:

Required

10+ years in solution engineering, solution architecture, technology consulting, product engineering, or related roles delivering complex digital initiatives.

4+ years in a digital agency, professional services, or consulting environment.

Ability to assess business goals, user needs, constraints, and systems to define solution approaches.

Ability to translate business and technical requirements into clear architectures and recommendations.

Hands-on expertise designing, deploying, and optimizing generative AI solutions, including prompt engineering and evaluation.

Strong API and integration knowledge, with ability to partner across platforms, infrastructure, and QA teams.

Track record leading cross-functional agile teams and shipping production work.

Executive communication, presentation, and client engagement skills.

Comfort as an IC / player-coach: hands-on when needed, guiding through influence.

Strong technical documentation skills, including architecture diagrams, integration patterns, and strategy.

Preferred

Experience implementing solutions in and around MarTech and advertising technology ecosystems.

Experience building reusable internal platform capabilities used across multiple client teams.

Experience evaluating AI vendors/APIs/models on capability, cost, service levels, integration requirements, and platform fit.

2026-177029

Additional Information

Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact USMTTACompliance@publicis.com.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Compensation Range: USD $168,150.00 - USD $241,605.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. This role may also be eligible for bonus or incentive compensation. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 1/1/2028.