IT Enterprise Architect

Henderson Companies•Kansas City, MO

About The Position

The IT Enterprise Architect is responsible for defining and governing the architecture of enterprise products, services, and solution capabilities to ensure alignment with business strategy, operational excellence objectives, and evolving organizational needs. This role translates business and service strategy into clear architectural direction, establishing how services, service offerings, and enabling solutions work together across value streams. Partnering with business leaders, service owners, and delivery teams, the Architect provides guidance that improves service consistency, scalability, and efficiency while balancing transformation initiatives with operational stability. Through standards, principles, and hands‑on engagement, this role enables continuous improvement, informed decision‑making, and sustainable evolution of the enterprise service landscape.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in information systems, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field required, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
6+ years of progressive experience in IT architecture, solution architecture, application design, Service Management, or enterprise technology roles with a bachelor’s degree in information systems, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or 9+ years of experience without a related bachelor’s degree.
ITIL v4 or later certification required, with demonstrated experience applying service management principles in an enterprise environment.
Demonstrated experience designing or governing product, service, and application architectures in a complex enterprise environment.
Strong understanding of business capabilities, value streams, and how technology enables operational outcomes.
Experience supporting operational excellence, process improvement, or transformation initiatives through architectural guidance.
Experience with solution architecture patterns, integration approaches, and modern application ecosystems (cloud, SaaS, APIs, platforms).
Ability to balance strategic target‑state thinking with pragmatic, incremental improvements.
Proven ability to influence decisions and guide teams without direct authority.
Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to assess tradeoffs across cost, risk, scalability, and usability.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document and present architectural concepts.
Familiarity with IT service management concepts (e.g., ITIL) and their relationship to service design and operations.
Proficiency in common documentation and collaboration tools (e.g., Microsoft 365, diagramming tools, architecture repositories).
Working knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or Zachman; formal certification preferred.

Responsibilities

Define and maintain enterprise service offering architecture, including relationships between business capabilities, services, service offerings, and consumer needs.
Ensure service architectures support clarity, consistency, and reuse across the enterprise.
Partner with service owners to align service design with business outcomes and customer expectations.
Establish target‑state and transitional architectures that support service evolution and operational excellence.
Provide architectural leadership and guidance for solution design initiatives supporting enterprise services and value streams.
Translate business requirements and operational objectives into solution patterns and architectural direction.
Guide solution decisions to ensure scalability, interoperability, usability, and supportability.
Balance near‑term delivery needs with long‑term architectural integrity.
Embed architectural thinking into operational excellence initiatives, including process optimization, standardization, and simplification efforts.
Identify architectural drivers of inefficiency, redundancy, or operational risk and recommend improvement opportunities.
Support continuous improvement by aligning service architecture with evolving operating models and value streams.
Partner with operational leaders to ensure architecture supports reliable, efficient service delivery.
Define, maintain, and apply architecture principles, standards, and reference models to guide consistent decision‑making.
Participate in architecture governance forums, design reviews, and roadmap discussions.
Assess solution conformance to architectural standards and provide pragmatic guidance to address gaps.
Support ongoing improvement of architecture management practices and governance models.
Collaborate with business leaders, service owners, and technology partners to align architecture with strategic priorities.
Communicate architectural concepts and tradeoffs effectively to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
Support enterprise planning and prioritization by providing architectural insight into dependencies, impacts, and options.
Contribute to the development of an architecture community and shared architectural understanding.
Monitor emerging technologies, solution patterns, and industry trends relevant to enterprise services and operations.
Evaluate potential applicability of new approaches to improve service outcomes and operational efficiency.
Continuously refine architectural artifacts, methods, and engagement approaches to increase effectiveness.