Enterprise Architect

About the Opportunity

Job Summary

The enterprise architect proactively and holistically helps and guides the enterprise leaders, product managers, product owners and distributed product delivery teams through transformation and optimization initiatives, supporting the formulation of business strategy, outcomes, and capabilities. The enterprise architect’s scope of activities could include helping the organization achieve targeted business outcomes related to growing revenue, optimizing costs, mitigating risks and improving sustainability. They focus on development of the business and IT strategy and enterprise architecture of the organization as a whole.

The enterprise architect must:

• Facilitate alignment between business and IT, and across the democratized IT landscape.
• Engage business and IT stakeholders, building and maintaining relationships.
• Adapt to changing business and operating models.
• Analyze trends and disruptions, and assess their impact on targeted business outcomes.
• Tell stories to visualize the future state and trigger long-term planning.
• Support various operating models such as project-centric and product-centric
• Communicate the value of enterprise architecture, and its portfolio of services
• Drive the evolution of the EA teams services and operating model
• Coach and mentor other architects, product owners/managers and business stakeholders to instill architectural thinking.

Regrettably, the university is unable to work sponsor for this role, now or in the future.

This position is hybrid; working three days onsite is required.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master’s or bachelor’s degree in business, computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, system analysis or a related field of study, or equivalent experience.
• Eight or more years of business experience in strategic and operations planning and/or business analysis or experience as an enterprise architecture consultant.
• 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.
• Understanding of business models, operating models, financial models, cost-benefit analysis, budgeting and risk management.
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture tools, related graphical models, and frameworks.
• Insight into information management practices, system development life cycle management, IT services management, agile and lean methodologies, infrastructure and operations, and EA and ITIL frameworks.
• Understanding of various operating models such as project-centric and product-centric and also different types of agile principles, methodologies and frameworks, especially those designed to be scaled at the enterprise level.
• Awareness of existing, new and emerging technologies, and processing environments.
• Effective leadership skills with exceptional soft and interpersonal skills, including teamwork, facilitation, and negotiation.
• Strong consulting skills such as targeted communications, engagement management, stakeholder management and business development.
• Mastery of all components of enterprise architecture, business & IT principles, and processes.
• Excellent analytical, planning and organizational skills. Organizationally savvy, with situational and contextual intelligence of the political climate of the enterprise and how to navigate obstacles and politics.
• Proven ability to balance the long-term (“big picture”) and short-term implications of individual decisions and organization goals.
• Vendor- and technology-neutral — more interested in achieving targeted business outcomes than in personal preferences, or in vested personal preferences of other business and IT leaders.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

Supports Formulation of Strategy and Guides Execution

• Works with the Academic and Administrative Leadership Stakeholders to Develop Strategy
• Develops diagnostic and action-oriented deliverables that help guide investment decisions in support of executing business strategy.
• Determines the relationship between people, processes, information, technology and other components of the enterprise operating model, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment.

Builds and Maintains Relationships

• Builds the Enterprise Architecture Value Proposition and Structures Business Engagement
• Develops a portfolio of consulting services, designed to meet business and stakeholder needs, and delivers in an agile and time-boxed way.
• Leads and facilitates interaction with business leaders, product managers and product owners in a business-driven conversation over the risks and implications of the product decision to the line of business, business unit and greater University.

• Leads a collaborative community of architects and works with a strategic committee to guide transformation and resolve any conflicts between IT delivery and Global University outcomes.

Orchestrates the Delivery of Business Outcomes

• Positions the EA practice at the intersection of business and IT. Ensures that the EA practice is designed and enabled to formulate, translate, and execute university strategy.
• Develops diagnostic and action-oriented deliverables that help guide investment decisions in support of executing university strategy.

Brings Alignment Across Business and IT

• Leads analysis of the business’ future-state capabilities and future (and current) IT environment to detect critical gaps and opportunities and recommend solutions for improvement to drive the business towards its targeted outcomes.
• Identifies organizational requirements for the resources, structures, and cultural changes necessary to support the enterprise architecture.
• Works with the CIO and IT leaders to find the right EA organizational design to drive business-outcomes. This may include being part of fusion teams and supporting initiatives.
• Ensures that the EA organizational design process leads to a more efficient and effective business and IT operating model, significantly improved results (e.g., profitability, customer service, internal operations), and EA resources empowered and committed to the integration of business and IT.

Plans and Manages the IT Portfolio

Supports Portfolio Modernization and Develops Roadmaps

• Maintains the alignment, integration, and coordination of architecture activities across different programs, projects and products as they evolve over time.
• Presents gap analyses and/or IT investment roadmaps that reflect the status of the existing IT landscape, namely, its ability to contribute to future-state business capabilities around ecosystems and digital platforms.
• Leads analysis of the IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Leads the development of an implementation plan for the enterprise architecture based on business requirements and the varying IT strategies for project-driven or product-driven delivery teams.
• Supports Solutions Design and Delivery including standards, reference architectures, principles, and guardrails.

Supports Solutions Design and Delivery

• Develops and applies minimal viable architectures, which can include a set of standards, reference architecture patterns, principles and guardrails, through the EA governance model, which is informed by the business strategy and corporate governance. Clarifies accountability and provides the focal point for agile, effective and efficient decision making.
• Facilitates a collaborative relationship across architecture community, product management and product delivery teams by providing freedom-in-a-box for decision making, with the minimal viable architecture forming the boundaries of the box.
• Collaborates with delivery teams to ensure consistency with the enterprise architecture, as well as to leverage shared technologies, tools and processes that impact speed to value and time to market.
• Collaborates with infrastructure teams to ensure consistency with the enterprise architecture, as well as to identify when it is necessary to modify the enterprise architecture.

Position Type

Information Technology

Additional Information

Northeastern University considers factors such as candidate work experience, education and skills when extending an offer.  

Northeastern has a comprehensive benefits package for benefit eligible employees. This includes medical, vision, dental, paid time off, tuition assistance, wellness & life, retirement- as well as commuting & transportation. Visit https://hr.northeastern.edu/benefits/ for more information.  

Northeastern University is an equal opportunity employer, seeking to recruit and support a broadly diverse community of faculty and staff.  Northeastern values and celebrates diversity in all its forms and strives to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds cohesion. 

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, or any other  characteristic protected by applicable law.

To learn more about Northeastern University’s commitment and support of diversity and inclusion, please see www.northeastern.edu/diversity .