Director of Technology Enablement

Job Description

About Kirkland & EllisAt Kirkland & Ellis, we don’t just meet the standard for legal excellence — we set it. Our culture is built on teamwork, ingenuity and an unwavering commitment to continuous growth. We tackle the most sophisticated legal challenges with bold ideas and innovative solutions, powered by the exceptional experience and ambition of our 7,000+ people, including 4,000+ attorneys, across 22 offices worldwide.

Our dedicated professionals share our lawyers’ commitment to excellence and show up each day to do meaningful work that helps drive global business, investment and innovation forward. What You’ll DoAre you a strategic, hands-on technology leader who thrives at the intersection of architecture, data, and quality—driving standards that scale and enable innovation? As Director of Technology Enablement, you’ll provide firmwide leadership for the shared technology capabilities that empower delivery teams to build secure, high-quality, and future-ready solutions. This role sits at the center of the firm’s technology ecosystem, overseeing Enterprise Architecture, data platforms and data management, and centralized Quality Assurance (QA).

You’ll define and steward technical standards and reference architectures across application, data, and infrastructure domains, while partnering closely with IT and business leaders to ensure technology services align with strategic objectives. As a true player-coach, you’ll remain hands-on for critical design reviews and architectural decisions, while mentoring talent and fostering a standards-driven culture of continuous improvement, reliability, and delivery excellence.

Enterprise Architecture Leadership – Set firmwide direction, standards, and reference architectures across application, data, and infrastructure domains to ensure scalable, secure, and high-quality solutions. Data Platform & Strategy Enablement – Oversee delivery and management of enterprise data platforms, including data warehousing, integrations, and data governance solutions that support the firm’s broader data strategy. Strategic Alignment – Partner with business and technology leaders to align architecture and data services with current and future firm objectives.

Architecture Roadmapping – Develop and maintain enterprise architecture roadmaps focused on scalability, security, performance, and long-term maintainability. Integration & API Standards – Drive adoption of standardized integration patterns, application programming interfaces (APIs), and data services to enable secure, efficient data flow across systems. Security & Compliance Assurance – Ensure architectural designs and data solutions meet security, compliance, and regulatory requirements.

Design Governance & Reviews – Provide technical oversight through solution and design reviews, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and best practices. Emerging Technology Evaluation – Lead assessment and adoption of emerging technologies that enhance architecture and data capabilities, including artificial intelligence (AI) readiness.

Cross-Team Collaboration – Partner with infrastructure, application, and security teams to maintain architectural integrity and seamless service delivery. Architecture & Data Governance – Establish transparent, collaborative governance processes with clear decision traceability. Vendor Partnership Management – Manage key technology vendor relationships to ensure alignment with architectural and data management goals.

Talent Development – Mentor and develop multidisciplinary technical teams, remaining hands-on for critical design reviews, data modeling decisions, and complex technical challenges. Quality Assurance Ownership – Own firmwide QA standards, including release quality gates, test automation strategy, tooling, and entry/exit criteria to improve reliability and delivery velocity. QA Enablement – Stand up shared QA frameworks and guidance (test automation, test data management, performance and security testing) and coach delivery teams on adoption.

Metrics & Continuous Improvement – Define, track, and report Technology Enablement key performance indicators (KPIs) such as architecture conformance, automation coverage, defect escape rates, change success rates, and data quality scores. What You’ll BringEducation – Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field required; Master’s degree preferred (or equivalent experience). Leadership Experience – 15+ years of progressive information technology (IT) experience, including 5+ years leading shared services across Enterprise Architecture, Data/Business Intelligence (BI) & Integrations, and centralized QA.

Enterprise Architecture Expertise – Proven experience defining firmwide technical standards, reference architectures, and non-functional requirements such as reliability, performance, security, and observability. Data Platform Delivery – Hands-on experience delivering enterprise data platforms (warehouse or lakehouse), data governance and lineage, integrations, and BI enablement. Modern Technology Stack Knowledge – Strong understanding of cloud platforms (Microsoft Azure and/or Amazon Web Services (AWS)), hybrid architectures, API management, integration platform as a service (iPaaS), event/streaming architectures, and modern DevOps/continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices.

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