Director Architecture Operations

Sherwin-Williams•Cleveland, OH

2d•Remote

About The Position

The Director, Architecture Operations runs the operating backbone of the architecture function, including its processes, data, tooling, reporting, and budget. Portfolio and Practice Architects own architecture standards, patterns, reference architectures, future-state designs, and business capability model content. This role owns how architecture work is requested, routed, decided, recorded, published, measured, and funded. It does not set technical direction; it ensures that established direction is executed on time and documented, and that the function operates as a coordinated practice. The role oversees governance operations, architecture portfolio data and tooling, application rationalization, technology acquisition and lifecycle governance, innovation intake, operating cadence and reporting, budget and capacity, and people management. It manages and develops analysts and architects assigned to each area, including direction, performance, career development, and hiring, while building an analyst-to-architect pipeline. This is a remote position with 20% travel. The position is not eligible for current or future work-authorization sponsorship. Employment is subject to a criminal-history review. Applicants must be at least 18 years old. The role is eligible for a performance-based bonus subject to the company’s applicable plans.

Requirements

Must be at least 18 years of age.
Must be legally authorized to work in the country of employment without current or future sponsorship for employment visa status.
Bachelor’s degree or higher in information technology, or at least 12 years of experience in IT architecture in lieu of a degree.
At least 9 years of experience in technology.
At least 3 years of hands-on engineering or delivery work.
At least 5 years in technology operations, IT governance, application portfolio management, vendor management, or a program office.
At least 5 years leading analysts or program staff, including hiring and performance management.
Experience running an enterprise intake or governance process end to end, including triage, decision records, follow-through to closure, and metrics.
Hands-on administration of an application portfolio or architecture management platform, including its data model, data quality, integrations, and reporting.
Experience with technology acquisition, including vendor evaluation, contract and renewal management, and third-party risk review alongside Security and Procurement.
Financial fluency, including total cost of ownership, business cases, savings tracking, and management of a departmental budget.

Responsibilities

Run the architecture review board process, including intake and triage, agenda and scheduling, decision logs, and tracking actions and exceptions through closure.
Ensure architecture requests reach the appropriate owner, are decided on time, and are recorded.
Own the architecture management platform and its data, including application and technology inventories, ownership and lifecycle data, and mappings of business capabilities to applications and technologies.
Set the portfolio data model, quality rules, and refresh cadence to support planning, rationalization, and acquisition decisions using a trusted dataset.
Own the publishing workflow for standards and patterns, including templates, review dates, and retirement of stale content.
Run the application rationalization program, including the inventory baseline, retire/consolidate/invest roadmap, business cases, decommission plans, and tracking realized savings and risk reduction against plan.
Own intake and governance for new technology and vendor requests, including inventory overlap checks, routing to the owning architect for standards fit, and coordinating third-party risk review with Information Security and Procurement.
Maintain the renewal and end-of-life calendar to keep the technology inventory current.
Run emerging-technology intake and triage, proof-of-concept funding gates and exit criteria, pilot tracking, and handoff of successful pilots to the owning Practice Architect for potential adoption as a standard.
Own the function’s operating rhythm, including the annual planning calendar and its connection to the capital and budget cycle, operating reviews, and offsite preparation.
Produce the architecture scorecard, including decision cycle time, exception rate, portfolio health, rationalization savings, and acquisition throughput, and prepare decision packages for leadership.
Own the function’s budget, tooling contracts, and research and advisory subscriptions.
Manage the view of architecture demand and capacity across portfolios, including assignments, utilization, and capacity gaps.
Manage and develop analysts and architects assigned to each area, including providing direction, performance management, career development, and hiring.
Build the analyst-to-architect pipeline.