Business Technology Architect

CliftonLarsonAllen•Houston, TX

About The Position

CLA is seeking an experienced Business Technology Architect to join its Information Technology team. This role connects business strategy with technology capabilities, architecture, and investment priorities to support organizational strategic objectives. The architect develops and maintains enterprise capability models, architecture frameworks, and strategic roadmaps that provide an integrated view of business processes, products, applications, data, platforms, and enabling technologies. The role partners with business and technology leaders to identify capability gaps, dependencies, redundancies, and opportunities for modernization, consolidation, reuse, and innovation. It provides strategic guidance for portfolio and technology investments, evaluates emerging technologies, and translates complex business and technology considerations into clear recommendations that support informed decision-making. The position also supports architecture governance, portfolio planning, technology investment decisions, and alignment among business objectives, capabilities, and technology outcomes. The architect leads cross-functional discussions and workshops, advises stakeholders on enterprise capabilities and technology direction, and communicates architectural concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences. CLA describes the work environment as collaborative and offers growth and flexibility.

Requirements

At least 6 years of relevant experience.
Proficiency in business and enterprise architecture principles and practices.
Experience with capability modeling, heat maps, and strategic technology roadmaps.
Understanding of value-stream and operating-model analysis.
Knowledge of portfolio rationalization and technology investment decision support.
Experience with business-to-technology traceability and dependency analysis.
Understanding of data, AI, automation, and technology readiness assessments.
Knowledge of architecture governance, decision rights, and accountability frameworks.
Experience with architecture modeling and visualization.
Strong executive storytelling, presentation, workshop design, and facilitation skills.
Knowledge of outcome measurement and continuous improvement methodologies, including Six Sigma.
Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to communicate at all levels.
Strong problem-solving and creative skills, sound judgment, integrity, dependability, urgency, and results orientation.
A bachelor's degree, or relevant experience and training that may be considered in lieu of a degree.

Nice To Haves

Experience in business architecture, enterprise architecture, technology strategy, solution/application architecture, product strategy, portfolio management, digital transformation, or a related discipline.
Experience developing enterprise capability models, architecture frameworks, strategic roadmaps, or target-state architectures.
Experience aligning business objectives and processes with applications, data, platforms, products, and technology capabilities.
Experience evaluating technology portfolios and developing recommendations for investment, modernization, consolidation, optimization, or retirement.
Experience influencing cross-functional stakeholders and facilitating strategic discussions with business and technology leaders.
Experience collaborating across Enterprise Architecture, Application Architecture, Product, Data and AI, Security, Platform Engineering, and Technology Operations.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain business and technology capability models, heat maps, dependency views, and other architecture artifacts that define capabilities, ownership, maturity, dependencies, and strategic importance.
Map relationships among business capabilities, processes, products, applications, data, platforms, services, APIs, and enabling technologies.
Develop current-state and target-state architecture views connecting business objectives with technology strategy and future-state capabilities.
Identify capability gaps, dependencies, redundancies, and opportunities for modernization, consolidation, integration, reuse, or retirement.
Partner with Enterprise, Application, Data, and Solution Architecture teams to promote alignment with enterprise architecture principles and standards.
Translate business strategy and objectives into architecture priorities and actionable roadmaps aligned with business, product, application, data, platform, and technology initiatives.
Analyze technology environments and recommend ways to improve scalability, efficiency, integration, security, and business value.
Assess business and technology implications of proposed changes and recommend sequencing, dependencies, and strategic trade-offs.
Support product, application, and technology portfolio planning and rationalization based on strategic value, adoption, technology health, cost, risk, security, and capability alignment.
Evaluate alternatives and recommend whether to invest in, modernize, consolidate, replace, sustain, or retire technology capabilities and solutions.
Partner with business, Product, and Finance stakeholders to assess total cost of ownership, return on investment, expected benefits, cost avoidance, risk reduction, and other measures of value.
Identify duplication across applications, products, platforms, and capabilities and recommend enterprise reuse and standardization opportunities.
Establish traceability between strategic objectives, business capabilities, technology investments, and expected business outcomes.
Identify opportunities to improve business capabilities through data, AI, automation, reusable services, APIs, and digital platforms.
Partner with Data and AI leaders to align technology capabilities with data ownership, governance, quality, security, and AI readiness.
Evaluate new technologies and architectural approaches and recommend adoption when aligned with business strategy and enterprise standards.
Advise on when shared enterprise capabilities or differentiated solutions best support business needs; incorporate emerging technologies into roadmaps and architecture recommendations.
Support architecture governance by establishing principles, standards, decision criteria, ownership, and accountability.
Conduct architecture reviews and assessments to evaluate alignment with business objectives, technology strategy, architectural principles, and enterprise standards.
Identify architectural risks, dependencies, exceptions, and trade-offs and communicate recommendations to stakeholders.
Develop concise, decision-ready recommendations and visualizations for leaders.
Promote consistent architecture terminology, models, and practices across business and technology teams.
Lead architecture, capability planning, roadmap, and portfolio discussions; facilitate cross-functional workshops to set priorities, evaluate alternatives, resolve dependencies, and build stakeholder alignment.
Influence decisions across organizational boundaries through expertise, analysis, facilitation, and trusted partnerships.
Translate complex technical and architectural concepts into clear business language for technical and nontechnical audiences.
Serve as a strategic advisor to business and technology stakeholders on enterprise capabilities, technology direction, architecture, and investment priorities.
Stay current with business architecture, enterprise architecture, technology strategy, AI, data, product operating models, and emerging technology practices.