Director, Enterprise Solution Architecture

Overview:

The Director, Enterprise Solution Architecture, is responsible for defining and evolving the enterprise’s Information Systems Architecture. They will lead a team of Enterprise Solution Architects who will guide the evolution of the Information Systems Architecture for individual business units.

The Director, Enterprise Solution Architecture, proactively and holistically leads and supports EA activities that guide the development and management of a portfolio of solutions. Solutions include projects and products, systems (including applications, technologies, processes and information), shared infrastructure services and shared application services.

You will understand the concepts of business goals, objectives and business outcomes, business capabilities, value-streams and business processes and their importance in solution architecture. The solutions architect provides the necessary leadership, analysis and design tasks related to support the development of technology solutions to ensure that solutions meet business needs and align with architectural governance and standards.

You will create deliverables for managing the organization's portfolio of "to be" and "as is" solutions — including systems (applications, processes, information and technology), shared infrastructure services, and shared application services and components to enable and drive targeted business outcomes.

Scope of Activities:

The Director, Enterprise Solution Architecture, and his team, will demonstrate competencies across four key dimensions:

Interpret Business Needs

• Translates business and technical requirements into an architectural blueprint to achieve business objectives and documents all solution architecture design and analysis work
• Works closely with the product owners and product managers to ensure a robust architectural runway that can support future business requirements throughout the product life cycle
• Understands business drivers and business capabilities (future and current state) and determines corresponding enterprise solution designs and change requirements to drive the organization's targeted business outcomes

Assess Technology

• Monitors the current-state solution portfolio to identify deficiencies through aging of the technologies used by the application, or misalignment with business requirements
• Monitors micro- and macroscopic trends in EA as well as global currents, including economic, political, social/cultural, environmental, regulatory/legal and/or technological disruptions for effective decision-making
• Supports product managers in end-of-life product decisions to maintain, refresh or retire services or systems, including applications, technologies, processes and information
• Understands emerging technology trends and disruptions and their practical application to enable new and evolving business and operating models
• Analyzes the technology industry, competitors and market trends, and determines their potential implications for a given solution
• Analyzes the business-IT environment to detect critical deficiencies, legacy and technical debt, and also recommends solutions for improvement

Apply Technology

• Supports evaluation, design and analysis for the implementation of a solutions architecture across a group of specific business applications or technologies based on enterprise business strategy, business capabilities, value-streams, business requirements and enterprise standards
• Manages and develops the architecture for a broader scope of projects or products, working closely with application architects that manage and design architecture for a single project or product or initiative
• Develops a roadmap for the evolution of the enterprise solution portfolio from current to future state, as defined by the solutions architecture
• Acts as a consultant on a broad range of technologies, platforms and vendor offerings to drive targeted business outcomes
• Creates architectural designs to guide and contextualize solution development across products, services, projects and systems, including applications, technologies, processes and information
• Provides consulting support to application architects within agile teams to ensure the project or product is aligned with the overall enterprise architecture

Provide Enterprise Guidance

• Provides deliverables like standard definitions, reference models and architecture designs to support architectural governance to assess the impact of new and ongoing technology investment on the business and IT estate
• Supports a community of practice (CoP), guiding and helping agile teams, product owners to align with the overall enterprise architecture governance and assurance
• Designs and directs the governance activities associated with ensuring solutions architecture assurance and compliance
• Defines the principles, guidelines, standards and solution patterns to ensure solution decisions are aligned with the enterprise's future-state architecture vision

Credentials and Experience:

• A bachelor's degree in computer science, information-technology, engineering, system analysis or a related study, or equivalent experience
• A minimum of ten years of experience in IT solution development disciplines, including application development, middleware, database management or cloud development
• Exposure to multiple, diverse technologies, platforms and processing environments
• Good understanding of strategic and emerging technology trends, and the practical application of existing and emerging technologies to new and evolving business and operating models
• Good understanding of product management, agile principles and development methodologies and capability of supporting agile teams by providing advice and guidance on opportunities, impact and risks, taking account of technical and architectural debt
• Experience developing architecture blueprints, strategies and roadmaps
• Experience delivering presentations to senior-level executives and technical audiences

Skills:

• Expert knowledge of business ecosystems, SaaS, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), SOA, APIs, open data, microservices, event-driven IT and predictive analytics.
• Expert knowledge of information management practices, system development life cycle management, IT services management, agile and lean methodologies, infrastructure and operations, and EA and ITIL frameworks.
• Knowledge of business models, operating models, financial models, cost-benefit analysis, budgeting, and risk management.
• Exceptional soft and interpersonal skills, including teamwork, facilitation, and negotiation.
• Translating business needs into EA requirements and estimating the fiscal impact of EA alternatives.
• Strong leadership skills.
• Excellent analytical and technical skills.
• Excellent written, verbal, communication, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate innovative ideas and concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Excellent planning and organizational skills.
• Knowledge of all components of holistic enterprise architecture.
• The ability to influence the organization using storytelling and reasoning
• Expertise in driving large scale organizational change in an organization

Competencies

• Organizationally savvy, with the ability to navigate organizational politics with tact
• Skilled at influencing, guiding and facilitating stakeholders and peers with decision making
• Ability to articulate new ideas and concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences
• Skilled at understanding the long-term ("big picture") and short-term perspectives of situations
• Proficient in translating future-state business capabilities and requirements into solution architecture requirements
• Ability to propose and estimate the financial impact of solution architecture alternatives
• Effective interpersonal skills to work creatively and analytically for solving business problems and propose solutions
• Apt at quickly comprehending the functions and capabilities of new technologies

Characteristics

• Trusted and respected as a thought leader who can influence and persuade business and IT leaders and IT development teams
• Technology neutral: remains unbiased toward any specific technology or vendor choice and is more interested in results than personal preferences
• Displays intellectual curiosity and integrity
• Motivated and driven by achieving long-term business outcomes
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment and lead cross-functional teams