Director of Architecture

A senior design-leadership opportunity for an architect who wants to combine hands-on creative influence, client leadership, business development, and a clear path toward Principal/Partner ownership.

Based in the Atlanta office of a multidisciplinary design firm, this role is for a self-directed leader who wants meaningful responsibility rather than a narrowly defined corporate lane.

Position Overview

Our client is seeking a senior architectural design leader to help shape the future of its Atlanta office. This is a Principal/Partner-track role with primary responsibility for design leadership and business development, supported by the firm's marketing and business-development resources and by senior leaders across the organization. The successful candidate will be expected to stay close to the work, lead clients and teams, generate new opportunities, and contribute materially to the practice.

Why This Role Stands Out

• Principal/Partner ownership track with meaningful influence on the practice, not simply a title change.
• A hands-on design culture where leaders remain directly involved in ideation.
• A multidisciplinary environment spanning architecture, landscape architecture, and planning, with opportunities to collaborate across disciplines.
• A broad project portfolio that includes single-family, townhome, multifamily, clubs and amenities, resorts/hospitality, senior living, mixed-use, planned communities, and themed entertainment.
• A culture described as informal, open, design-focused, collaborative, and less corporate than many firms.
  
• Real business-building responsibility, including client development, market visibility, proposal strategy, and a stated annual new-work generation goal.
• Room to make your own path: the firm values people who are self-guided, proactive, and motivated by the work and culture as much as compensation.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead architectural design and planning direction, including hands-on early-stage concept.
• Provide strategic design leadership and uphold the firm's expectations for design quality across projects.
• Lead business-development and marketing activities, including proposals, contract preparation, client communication, prospecting, and pursuit strategy.
• Generate repeat work and expanded scopes by understanding client business plans and identifying future opportunities.
• Participate in client interviews, industry networking, and speaking opportunities that strengthen the firm's market presence.
• Build and leverage client relationships, with direct responsibility for generating $1 million or more in new work annually; the source materials note that this goal is expected to increase over time.
• Lead, inspire, and mentor design professionals in Atlanta and across the firm.
• Develop new approaches to complex problems and help choreograph creative solutions across the practice.
• Contribute to at least two of the firm's three leadership dimensions: business development, design responsibility, and financial management; broader strength across all three is valued.

Required Qualifications

• Approximately 15-25 years of experience in the architecture profession.
• Well-rounded experience across business development, project design, and project delivery.
• Demonstrated client interaction and business-development capability, including the ability to leverage existing relationships and create new ones.
• A portfolio showing high-quality built work and strong design judgment; work may include projects outside the Southeast.
• Experience in at least one of the firm's core project areas.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and inspire other design professionals.
• Strong creative instincts - passion, artistry, and design creativity are explicitly emphasized for this role.
• A self-directed, proactive working style suited to an open, less-structured environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• A record of success spanning more than one of the firm's leadership dimensions: design, business development, and financial management.
• Market visibility through speaking, networking, client interviews, or active participation in industry communities.
• Experience working across multiple project types or within a multidisciplinary architecture/planning/landscape environment.
• Evidence of mentoring, coaching, and developing other designers while remaining personally engaged in design.