Enterprise Architect at Southern Company in Naperville, IL

GAS Enterprise Architect

Job Summary

The GAS Enterprise Architect proactively and holistically helps and guides Gas Technology Solutions and affiliate leaders, directors and managers, business process owners, and solution delivery teams in the formulation, implementation, and continuous improvement of the overall Technology Organization strategies that best deliver the required business outcomes and capabilities that enable Southern Company to meet the performance expectations of its stakeholders.

This position develops and maintains high-level designs for overall logical and technical IT architecture. Employees in this role provide leadership, strategic decision-making, and guidance within technical disciplines, solving unique and complex problems. Individuals facilitate and orchestrate the delivery of targeted business outcomes through technical decisions. Leaders in this job serve as top-level experts and visionaries in the development of roadmaps, strategy, and design for assigned technology areas.

This role will report to the Supv, Gas Architecture & Environment Mgmt.

Major Job Responsibilities

Works with business partners to analyze strategy and trends to define the requirements, principles, and models that guide technology decisions
Communicates and enforces technology standards with business partners
Understands industry trends and the practical application of existing, new, and emerging technologies
Drives digital innovation and develops roadmaps through new technologies and approaches to fulfill strategic business plans
Defines high-level migration plans to address gaps in current state architecture
Coaches, mentors, and leads technical subject matters experts to enable and drive consistency across technology architectures
Consults with project solution architects to ensure projects are leveraging best and most appropriate supported and preferred architecture patterns
Designs and owns governance, assurance, and standards activities for the overall enterprise technology architecture and its compliance
Reviews and helps govern the viability of individual project technical designs based on their compliance with published corporate IT architecture standards
Oversees and facilitates the evaluation, risk assessment, selection, and design of hardware and software technology and product standards
Delivers technology architecture artifacts, possibly including reference architectures or concepts of operation

Job Requirements

Education

Bachelor’s degree in MIS, Computer Science or a related field

Minimum 10+ years’ experience in architecture

Experience and Knowledge

Proven experience (10+ years) working as an Enterprise Architect or in a similar role, designing and implementing enterprise architecture plans for large-scale organizations.

Develop and maintain the enterprise architecture vision, strategy, and roadmap that align with business objectives and support the organization's mission.

Define and enforce architecture standards, principles, guidelines, and best practices to ensure consistency, scalability, and flexibility across all IT systems and applications.

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 analysis.

Trusted and respected as a thought leader who can influence and persuade business and IT leaders.

Comfortable, experienced, and accomplished at working with business executives, and able to push back in a professional and diplomatic way.

Strong understanding and experience implementing enterprise architecture frameworks, methodologies, and best practices.

Knowledge of cloud-based data and processing platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), big data analytics tools, and machine learning concepts.

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.

Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to analyze complex data challenges and design innovative and scalable solutions.

Proficiency in enterprise architecture tools, modeling languages, and documentation standards.

Coach and mentor other architects, application owners/managers and business stakeholders to instill architectural thinking.

Experience with Utility related business processes, industry applications, and supporting technologies.

A deep, comprehensive knowledge of the Software Development Life Cycle and development principles

Interest in and passion for learning and working in a fast-paced environment

Ability to handle multiple assignments and conflicting priorities

Ability to work with business partners and peers of varying levels of technical proficiency

Advanced understanding various technical principles, theories and concepts

Broad understanding of a wide range of technical areas

Excellent communication skills including the ability to translate complex or technical ideas into non-technical language