Description

Position Summary

Our client is undergoing a Business Transformation, moving away from legacy mainframe systems and highly distributed technologies to core ERP application suites running on IBM Power Systems hardware.  This transformation represents a fundamental shift in the IT Infrastructure Strategy.  A significant supporting component of that is the IT Architectural Strategy.  The Enterprise Systems Architect, working closely and in concert with ’s Chief Enterprise Architect, will develop and own the IT Architectural Strategy and multi-year roadmaps.  Initially, this individual must gain awareness of all IT initiatives and insure they are consistent with the new Architectural Strategy.  They must then grow the role into making architectural design recommendations and design decisions.

The successful candidate will become a member of the  IT Architecture Team and will be responsible for developing architectural blueprints, or strategies, multi-year roadmaps, developing financial cost analysis models and fiscal year budgeting.  This position will ensure high levels of availability and security for business applications, and will lead the planning and implementation of policies and procedures to ensure systems are consistent with company goals, multi-year application and technology roadmap, industry best practices, and regulatory requirements.

Essential Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities listed below are intended to provide general guidelines and parameters for the job and are not intended to be a comprehensive, detailed description of the job.

• Develop and maintain a comprehensive IT Architecture strategy consistent with industry best practices, available resources, business objectives that will serve as a model for the future of  IT.  The strategy must balance cultural norms and technological aspirations, and be consistent with long-term high availability objectives of  IT.
• Document IT Architectural vision, strategy and objectives.  These charter documents will clearly articulate the details, justification and rationalization of the IT Architectural Strategy as well as outline the technological, operational and financial benefits of the strategy.  They will also identify and document alternatives that were considered and rejected.  This living document will serve as the authoritative source for IT Architectural direction for the next 10 years.  It will undergo standard and regular review by management, executives and peer throughout the enterprise.  The IT Architectural Strategy will become written vision of  IT.
• Develop written, clear, and concise and unambiguous IT policies that support the strategic IT Architecture vision and strategy.  These policies will influence purchasing decisions, deployment timetables and will impact nearly all IT Projects.
• Represent the IT Architecture team in discussions with executive leadership, IT management, business partners, consultants and project teams to articulate and support business objectives in a manner consistent with the IT Architectural Strategy. 
• Provide architectural and design solutions that fully leverage the IT Architectural Strategy.
• Continuously research new and emerging technology to maintain knowledge of opportunities to enhance the IT Architectural Strategy.  Understand how these new technologies will integrate into the  environment, and make adjustments to the IT Architectural Strategy to take advantage of appropriate technologies and document which technologies are not going to be leveraged and why.
• Maintain constant contact with Directors and Managers of cross-team organizations within IT and with  partners to remain aware of new projects and opportunities they encounter as well as to capture technical and/or architectural issues that may arise as a result of existing or future Architectural policies.
• Assist in defining strategic architectural design and software direction. Assist in establishing and enforcing best practices, policies and procedures.
• Maintain expert knowledge in required technology area. Possess strong decision-making and problem solving skills within the required technology area.
• Developing and delivering business cases to management and leadership to advocate for suggested changes in strategic direction.
• Acts as a liaison between internal and external user communities.  Collaborates with application support staff to design and provision services, and troubleshoot problems.
• Leadership in Design and Implementation of Proactive Monitoring and Management processes within the required technology area
• Leadership in developing and planning Disaster Recovery (DR) procedures throughout the enterprise.
• Provide Configuration Management leadership across the enterprise for all supported technology platforms
• Must be able to remain current and possess knowledge of emerging technologies
• Advises management of options, risk vs. cost, benefits and other impacts on infrastructure technology solutions
• Sets technical standards and procedures across the enterprise for all strategic platforms
• Creates "Position Statements", "Technical Approaches" and "Technical Designs" documents as technology guidelines

Requirements