Enterprise Architect 

Role Summary

The Enterprise Architect (EA) is a senior technical leader responsible for defining, governing, and communicating enterprise‑wide technology architecture across applications, cloud, data, and infrastructure. This role blends executive‑level communication with deep technical credibility, ensuring architectural decisions are scalable, secure, compliant, and aligned to business objectives.

This role plays a critical leadership function in establishing and maturing enterprise architecture governance, including driving Architecture Review Board (ARB) practices, setting standards, and translating architectural vision into execution across multiple teams. The EA must clearly articulate the why behind architectural decisions to senior leadership while guiding engineering and infrastructure teams on the what and when.

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Architecture Leadership

• Define, evolve, and communicate enterprise architecture standards, reference architectures, and future‑state roadmaps.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to executive leadership on modernization priorities, architectural trade‑offs, and long‑term technology direction.
• Align architectural decisions with business objectives, compliance requirements, security frameworks, and cloud governance models.
• Act as a proxy for architecture leadership when needed, confidently representing enterprise architecture decisions to stakeholders.

Architecture Governance & ARB Enablement

• Establish, mature, and lead Architecture Review Board (ARB) practices, including intake standards, review processes, and decision frameworks.
• Evaluate solution proposals for architectural fit, risk, and alignment with enterprise standards.
• Communicate architectural risks, trade‑offs, and recommendations clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Drive consistency while enabling teams to execute efficiently within defined guardrails.

Application & Integration Architecture

• Provide technical leadership on application modernization, microservices, API‑driven and event‑driven architectures, and cloud‑native patterns.
• Review and guide solution designs including high‑level designs (HLDs), data flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, and deployment architectures.
• Promote reuse through shared services, APIs, and standardized integration patterns across teams.

Automation, DevOps & Engineering Enablement

• Partner with platform and infrastructure teams to promote automation‑first architectures, CI/CD standards, infrastructure‑as‑code (IaC), and policy‑as‑code (PaC).
• Define architectural expectations while enabling teams to own execution and delivery.
• Translate engineering constraints and architectural decisions into clear guidance for leadership and delivery teams.

Cloud, Identity & Network Architecture

• Collaborate with cloud, network, security, and infrastructure teams to ensure solutions are performant, resilient, secure, and scalable.
• Guide teams on identity architecture (Entra ID, B2B/B2C, MFA, Conditional Access), network segmentation, Zero Trust principles, and data flow boundaries.
• Validate cloud deployments against enterprise landing zone standards, security controls, and compliance requirements.

Cross‑Functional Leadership & Influence

• Drive alignment across product, engineering, infrastructure, security, and compliance teams.
• Translate enterprise strategy into actionable architectural direction across multiple teams.
• Mentor architects and senior engineers to strengthen architectural maturity and consistency across the organization.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, or senior engineering roles.
• Deep understanding of modern application architecture (microservices, APIs, distributed systems, event‑driven design).
• Strong experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform, Bicep).
• Proficiency in Azure architecture, including identity, networking, governance, and monitoring.
• Solid understanding of enterprise networking concepts (DNS, routing, firewalls, segmentation, load balancing).
• Proven ability to communicate effectively with executives while maintaining technical credibility with engineering teams.
• Experience participating in or leading architecture governance or ARB‑style bodies.
• Ability to create high‑quality architectural artifacts (HLDs, logical/physical diagrams, integration maps).
• Working knowledge of security and compliance frameworks (NIST 800‑171, CMMC, Zero Trust, FedRAMP).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing or reviewing automation scripts and pipelines (Python, PowerShell).
• Prior leadership or mentorship responsibilities in architecture or platform strategy roles.
• Relevant certifications (Azure Solutions Architect Expert, TOGAF, CKA).

Personal Attributes

• Executive presence paired with strong technical judgment.
• Comfortable setting direction and enabling others to execute.
• Calm under pressure, collaborative, and able to navigate ambiguity.
• Advocates for simplicity, standards, security, and long‑term sustainability.
• Equally comfortable whiteboarding with engineers and presenting strategy to senior leadership.