Enterprise Solutions Architect

The ideal candidate will lead and support Enterprise Architecture activities that guide the development and management of a portfolio of solutions. Solutions include projects, products, systems, shared infrastructure services, and shared application services.

They must understand business goals, objectives, and outcomes, as well as business capabilities, value-streams, and processes. The Solutions Architect provides necessary leadership, analysis, and design tasks to ensure technology solutions meet business needs and align with architectural governance and standards.

Main Responsibilities:

• Interpret Business Needs

1- Translate business and technical requirements into an architectural blueprint to achieve business objectives and document all solution architecture design and analysis work.

• Work closely with product owners and managers to ensure a robust architectural runway that can support future business requirements throughout the product life cycle.
• Understand business drivers and capabilities (future and current state) and determine corresponding enterprise solution designs and change requirements to drive targeted business outcomes.

2- Assess Technology

• Monitor the current-state solution portfolio to identify deficiencies through aging technologies or misalignment with business requirements.
• Monitor EA trends, global currents, economic, political, social/cultural, environmental, regulatory/legal, and technological disruptions for effective decision-making.
• Support product managers in end-of-life product decisions to maintain, refresh, or retire services or systems.
• Understand emerging technology trends and their practical application to enable new and evolving business models.
• Analyze industry, competitors, and market trends, determining implications for given solutions.
• Analyze the business-IT environment to detect critical deficiencies, legacy, and technical debt, recommending solutions for improvement.
• Facilitate evaluation, selection, and total cost of ownership of software product standards and services, designing standard and custom software configurations.

3- Apply Technology

• Lead evaluation, design, and analysis for implementing a solutions architecture across specific business applications or technologies based on enterprise strategy, business capabilities, value-streams, business requirements, and enterprise standards.
• Manage and develop architectures for broader scope projects or products, working with application architects managing single project or product initiatives.
• Develop a roadmap for evolving the enterprise solution portfolio from current to future state, defined by solutions architecture.
• Act as a consultant on various technologies, platforms, and vendor offerings to drive targeted business outcomes.
• Create architectural designs to guide and contextualize solution development across products, services, projects, and systems.
• Work with the program management office (PMO) or project management office to ensure execution corresponds with promises made throughout the project or product life cycle.

4- Provide Enterprise Guidance

• Provide deliverables like standard definitions, reference models, and architecture designs to support architectural governance assessing the impact of new technology investment on the business and IT estate.
• Support a community of practice (CoP), guiding agile teams and product owners to align with overall enterprise architecture governance and assurance.
• Design and direct governance activities ensuring solutions architecture assurance and compliance.
• Define principles, guidelines, standards, and solution patterns to ensure solution decisions align with the enterprise's future-state architecture vision.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information-technology, engineering, system analysis, or related studies, or equivalent experience.

Experience:

• A minimum of 8 years in at least two IT solution development disciplines: technical or infrastructure architecture, network management, application development, middleware, database management, or cloud development.
• Exposure to multiple diverse technologies, platforms, and processing environments.
• Relevant industry experience helpful but not required.
• Experience developing architecture blueprints, strategies, and roadmaps.
• Delivering presentations to senior-level executives and technical audiences.

Key Skills:

• Variety of backend development languages.
• Good understanding of database technologies.
• Sound knowledge of relevant enterprise systems.
• Knowledge of artificial intelligence/machine learning frameworks.
• Data savvy with integration, network, and security aspects of technology architecture.
• Good understanding of information principles and processes.
• Financial modeling and budgeting skills.
• System development life cycle methodologies.
• IT service management (ITSM) and ITIL.
• Modeling languages (UML and ArchiMate).
• Industry experience in applying development methodologies and infrastructure architecture.
• Proven analytical, planning, organizational, and technical skills.