IT Business Architect

With over 70 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life.

We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 33,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Key Responsibilities :

Please submit your CV in English.

Employee Contract Type :

Local. Open-ended. Full time Remote modality

HAY Grade : 17

JOB PURPOSE

This role is expected to :

• facilitate the development of the right future-state architecture and ensure its effective adoption.
• provide overall direction, guidance and definition of architecture programs that effectively support business strategies.
• advocate and support the enterprise’s IT strategies, identify and analyze enterprise business drivers, analyze the current IT environment to detect critical deficiencies, recommend improvement solutions and develop strategies aligning IT to the business.
• must have significant business knowledge and have one or more areas of technical expertise in which they concentrate. These technical areas may include network, security, applications and systems software, data and the Internet.

Individuals in this role work on highly complex projects that require in-depth knowledge of two or more specialized architecture areas such as network, security, applications, information, systems and Internet and business segments.

They work on multiple projects as a project leader or internal consultant. They are viewed as an expert and provide knowledge and counsel to others.

This role assists with leading, consulting or overseeing an architectural engagement.

Individuals in the Architect job family interface across all business areas, acting as visionaries to proactively assist in defining the direction for future projects.

They conceive strategies, and solutions, build consensus, and sell / execute solutions. They are involved in all aspects of the project life cycle, from the initial kickoff through the requirements analysis, design and implementation.

Additional responsibilities may include the establishment of the overall architectural viewpoints and the establishment and oversight of organization standards and policies.

Architects identify major system interfaces, build e-business capabilities, and identify existing architecture weaknesses and opportunities for systems.

SCOPE OF RESPONSABILITES

• Develops the enterprise-wide guidelines and standards for cataloging and maintaining data repositories.
• Develops single source data strategy.
• Maintains enterprise-wide integrity of the data model by ensuring that data design and transformation procedures are implemented and followed.
• Participates in the design of the information architecture, across multiple data types.
• Participates in the development of a usable information architecture, which may include a data model, associated metamodel, common business vocabulary, ontologies and taxonomies, which will then be used to guide solution development and achieve consistency of information assets across the application portfolio.
• Ensures regulatory issues are considered
• Works closely with other functional area architects and security specialists to ensure adequate security solutions are in place throughout all IT systems and platforms to mitigate identified risks sufficiently, and to meet business objectives and regulatory requirements.
• Develops the business, information and technical artifacts that constitute the enterprise information security architecture and solutions.
• Researches, designs and advocates new technologies, architectures, and security products.
• Analyzes business impact and exposure, based on emerging security threats, vulnerabilities and risks.
• Communicates security risks and solutions to business partners and IT staff.
• Assists in the development of solutions that deliver capabilities to the enterprise.
• Analyzes enterprise business drivers to determine corresponding change requirements.
• Assists with the design and implementation of an ESA based on enterprise business requirements and IT strategies.
• Assists in defining the principles to guide solution decisions for the enterprise.
• Coordinates solution architecture implementation and modification activities.
• Assists in the evaluation and selection of software product standards, as well as the design of standard software configurations.
• Consults with application or infrastructure development projects to fit systems or infrastructure to architecture.
• Provides strategic consultation to assigned line-of-business (LOB) customers, or generally, in defining or designing business processes, functions and organizational structures.
• Keeps IT's technology and service managers aware of key LOB customer issues, identifying and resolving potential problems and conflicts.
• Collaborates with other IT functional areas to remain apprised of project status, and inform LOB customer management of progress.
• Facilitates agreement on organizational work models to meet business requirements.
• Works collaboratively with business strategists, process owners and subject matter experts.
• Leverages technology to enable or alter business processes or practices.
• Assists in the definition of the principles that guide technology decisions for the enterprise.
• Assists in the implementation of an Enterprise Technology Architecture (ETA) based on business requirements and IT strategies, as well as rectify gaps and pain points within the current state.
• Analyzes the current technology environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Assesses the capacity and resource utilization of application and search tools, components, network, platform facilities, application / integration / database servers, storage, security and management hardware and software.
• Approves and modifies the designs and architectures by reviewing end-user topology, security, performance, and interoperability requirements.
• Participates in domain technical and business discussions relative to future architecture direction.
• Aligns architectural strategy with business goals.
• Assists in the analysis, design, and development of a roadmap and implementation plan based upon a current vs. future state in a cohesive architecture viewpoint.
• Works with the Lead Architect to ensure architectural alignment.
• Gathers and analyzes data and develops requirements at the project level.
• Aligns architectural requirements with IT strategy.
• Assesses near-term needs to establish business priorities.
• Analyzes information to evaluate the effectiveness of controls, determine the accuracy of reports, and monitor the efficiency and security of operations.
• Supports and participates in developing policies, standards, guidelines and procedures.
• Designs standard software configurations.
• Promotes the EA process, outcomes and results.
• Participates in the EA and domain’s architecture Governance process.
• Reviews exceptions and makes recommendations to architectural standards at a domain level.
• Identifies opportunities for reuse.
• Supports the development of architectural models or views.
• Analyze the current architecture to identify weaknesses and develop opportunities for improvements.
• Identifies and when necessary, proposes variances to the architecture to accommodate project needs.
• Consults with project teams to ensure compatibility with existing solutions, infrastructure and services.
• Manages the design of systems.
• Provides strategic consultation to clients and IT teams.
• Participates in quality reviews and provides feedback.
• Advises on options, risks, costs versus benefits, system impacts, and technology priorities.
• Works with business leaders to understand business requirements and help them understand how technology tradeoffs influence strategy.
• Consults on business-facing projects and maintains knowledge of their progress.
• Keeps IT’s technology and service managers aware of key customer issues, identifying and resolving potential problems and conflicts.
• Sells the architecture process, its outcome and ongoing results.
• Coordinates architecture implementation and modification activities.
• Assists in post-implementation continuous improvement efforts to enhance performance and provide increased functionality.
• Ensures the conceptual completeness of the technical solution.
• Works closely with project management to ensure alignment of plans with what is being delivered.
• Researches and evaluates emerging technology, industry and market trends to assist in project development and / or operational support activities.
• Provides recommendations based on business relevance, appropriate timing and deployment.
• Identifies the tools and components used for a project from the approved enterprise toolset.
• Recommends expenditures based on the size, scope, and cost of hardware and software components.
• Assists in developing business cases.
• Recommends changes that impact strategic business direction.
• Supports change management initiatives.
• Collaborates with project management on reporting project status, issues, risks and benefits.
• Meets with project leaders to ensure progress toward architectural alignment with project goals and requirements.
• Develops, motivates, and directs staff to create a team environment.
• Provides leadership, coaches and mentors team members.
• Recommends training programs targeting specific areas of improvement.

KNOWLEDGE / QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE ROLE

Required Professional Experience, education, training, license, registration, and certification :

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Systems Analysis or a related field.

Or equivalent work experience.

• 6+ in senior Business Analysis, Business Architecture, and Solutions Architecture roles in Purchasing, Supply Chain, and / or Logistics System areas.
• Typically has 9-10 years of experience in multiple IT areas with 3 - 4 years of relevant domain experience (data, network, application, systems, etc.

and leadership experience.

• Experience in leading transformational business process changes, working with Business and IT.
• Experience researching, developing and deploying sales tools, technologies, and automation solutions / strategies in the field.
• Requires advanced to expert-level knowledge and understanding of architecture, application design, systems engineering and integration.
• Expertise in creating process maps, writing technical user stories, documenting business requirements and running user acceptance tests.
• Ability to distill complex business issues into concrete action plans; manage execution; and drive results / Ability to translate complex subjects into actionable recommendations.
• Demonstrated excellence in cross-functional communication, with the ability to simplify and explain complex problems to stakeholders of all levels and backgrounds.
• Ability to visualize growth and build high-level models for future analysis and maturing the current business architecture.
• Ability to partner with stakeholders to document and communicate values generated from the new capabilities and processes.
• Highly entrepreneurial and able to operate independently with minimum supervision.

Preferred Knowledge, skills and qualifications :

Program / project management skills and the ability to set clear goals to get desired results.

Language Requirements :

High command / fluency in English both written and oral communication skills. Other language like Spanish or French will be an added advantage.

Travel and / or Work Environment Requirement :

• The position requires the ability and willingness to travel nationally or internationally up to 20 % of the time. Work would be principally remote with some travel to offices for necessary meeting collaborations.
• This role involves working in a virtual / geographically dispersed / multi-culturally team.

Working Relationships :

• Architectural Working Group
• Business Stakeholders

Compensation