Director, Architecture

Western Governors University•Salt Lake City, UT

1d•$190,100 - $342,200

About The Position

WGU is transforming its technology ecosystem from the ground up—modernizing its core platforms, rethinking how its systems connect, and actively embedding AI throughout the university. The university is building toward a modern, cloud-based, event-driven architecture designed to increase agility, scalability, interoperability, and its ability to rapidly deliver better experiences for students and staff. The Director of Enterprise Architecture will play a critical leadership role in this transformation, translating WGU’s business and technology strategy into the architecture direction, standards, patterns, and roadmaps that shape its next-generation technology ecosystem. This role involves leading and developing a team of architects while partnering across engineering, product, data, security, infrastructure, and business teams to drive significant technology decisions. It is an opportunity to help design what comes next, not simply govern what already exists. Success requires a combination of people leadership, enterprise architecture expertise, modern technical depth, AI experience, and executive influence. The individual must be equally comfortable coaching senior architects, navigating complex technical tradeoffs, and presenting a compelling recommendation to executive leaders. This is a role for an experienced architecture leader, not a first-time people leader or an individual contributor looking to make the transition into management.

Requirements

15 years of progressive technology experience in complex enterprise environments.
8 years of formal technology leadership experience, including demonstrated success directly managing architects, senior architects, engineering leaders, or similarly senior technical professionals.
5+ years of enterprise architecture or equivalent architecture leadership experience.
Experience playing a meaningful architecture leadership role in a large-scale technology modernization or transformation.
Proven ability to translate business and technology strategy into target-state architectures, transition roadmaps, standards, patterns, and decisions.
Deep practical expertise in SOA, microservices, APIs, event-driven architecture, messaging, distributed systems, and enterprise integration patterns.
Strong experience with modern cloud architectures and platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Demonstrated experience delivering AI-enabled capabilities into production—not solely proofs of concept or experimentation.
Practical knowledge of modern AI architectures, including generative AI, LLMs, RAG, agentic systems, AI orchestration, enterprise data integration, security, observability, and governance.
Experience establishing or leading pragmatic architecture governance and standards.
Strong executive presence with exceptional written, verbal, presentation, and facilitation skills.
Demonstrated negotiation and conflict-resolution skills.
Proven ability to influence senior leaders and drive significant technology decisions without direct reporting authority.
Ability to balance an ambitious target architecture with the practical realities of legacy technology, delivery commitments, cost, risk, and organizational change.

Nice To Haves

Experience helping lead a ground-up or large-scale enterprise technology transformation.
Experience modernizing complex legacy technology ecosystems.
Experience in a complex, high-volume enterprise environment.
Experience with TOGAF or other enterprise architecture frameworks.
Experience with data architecture, governance, security, and privacy.
Experience evaluating strategic technology vendors and supporting technology selection and negotiation.

Responsibilities

Shape WGU’s transformation toward a modern, cloud and mesh-based, loosely coupled, event-driven technology ecosystem.
Translate strategy into target-state architectures, transition roadmaps, standards, and reusable patterns.
Rethink and modernize legacy platforms, integrations, and architectural patterns rather than simply extending them.
Guide significant decisions spanning applications, integration, platforms, data, cloud, security, and AI.
Identify opportunities to simplify the technology landscape, reduce technical debt, improve interoperability, and increase reuse.
Partner with technology and business leaders on modernization, platform, build-versus-buy, and other consequential technology decisions.
Evaluate emerging technologies and determine where they can create meaningful, sustainable value for WGU.
Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of architects.
Create clear expectations for technical excellence, architectural judgment, business partnership, and communication.
Develop architects who can independently lead complex domains and transformation initiatives.
Attract, develop, and retain senior architecture talent.
Build a strong architecture community and promote consistent practices across WGU.
Provide leadership and deep expertise in SOA, APIs, microservices, mesh architecture, messaging, and enterprise integration patterns.
Establish modern patterns for service boundaries, domain ownership, APIs, events, integration, interoperability, and data exchange.
Help teams make thoughtful tradeoffs across synchronous services, asynchronous events, APIs, packaged platforms, and data integration.
Champion architectures designed for scalability, resilience, observability, security, maintainability, and rapid change.
Partner closely with engineering leaders to turn architectural direction into working software and platforms.
Maintain enough technical depth to challenge assumptions, architectural designs, and coach architects through difficult decisions.
Provide architecture leadership as WGU integrates AI capabilities throughout its products, platforms, operations, and technology ecosystem.
Apply real-world experience taking AI solutions from concept to implementation at an enterprise level.
Help establish architecture patterns for generative AI, LLMs, RAG, agentic systems, AI orchestration, model and tool integration, and AI-enabled workflows.
Help establish the foundational platforms, integration patterns, data access, security, observability, and guardrails needed to scale AI responsibly across the enterprise.
Partner with product, engineering, data, security, and business teams to turn AI opportunities into production capabilities.
Help teams distinguish where AI creates meaningful value—and where traditional software, automation, integration, or analytics is the better solution.
Continuously evaluate a rapidly changing AI landscape and translate relevant advances into practical implications for WGU’s architecture.
Build trusted relationships with technology, business, product, data, infrastructure, and security leaders.
Communicate complex technology choices in terms of business outcomes, tradeoffs, risks, and cost.
Create and deliver compelling architecture strategies, roadmaps, and executive presentations.
Facilitate and influence difficult decisions and build alignment among stakeholders with competing priorities.
Influence technology decisions across teams not directly managed.
Lead pragmatic architecture governance that improves decision quality and accelerates transformation without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.