Staff Systems Architect (ServiceNow)

GCI Communication Corp•Anchorage, AK

4d•$89,265 - $148,180•Hybrid

About The Position

GCI's Staff Systems Architect (ServiceNow) will be responsible for defining, designing, communicating, and evolving systems architecture for enterprise IT systems, integrations, and application environments to ensure technology solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, supportable, and aligned to business outcomes and enterprise technology strategy. Partners with business owners, product management, product owners, scrum teams, release train engineers, engineering, security, infrastructure, operations, and architecture stakeholders to translate business capabilities, epics, features, non-functional requirements, and value stream objectives into actionable architecture models, architectural runway, enabler work, system designs, integration approaches, technical roadmaps, and delivery guidance. Provides architectural leadership from intake and discovery through PI planning, iterative delivery, release, system demo, operational readiness, and continuous improvement to ensure systems deliver measurable business value while managing performance, interoperability, compliance, risk, technical debt, and long-term sustainability.

Requirements

High School diploma or equivalent.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Systems Analysis, Engineering, or a relevant field.
Minimum of six (6) years of experience in at least two disciplines in a telecommunications and/or IT environment, including systems architecture, systems engineering, infrastructure architecture, network design, application platforms, integration, cloud services, data architecture, security/compliance, and operational support.
Exceptional interpersonal skills, including collaboration, facilitation, negotiation, and persuasion.
Takes initiative in communication and collaboration among remote and onsite teams.
Ability to accurately read, write, and respond to routine business correspondence such as emails, chat messages, policies, procedures, reports.
Ability to accurately communicate information virtually and in-person in a clear and concise manner to a range of audiences.
Ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to all audiences.
Knowledgeable in the areas of solutions strategy and development.
Excellent organizational and technical problem-solving skills and resources.
Relentlessly persistent and positive in pursuit of good architectural decisions and direction.
Strong knowledge of current architecture methodologies and systems technologies and standards.
Ability to translate desired business capabilities and requirements into solution architecture.
Excellent at timely and thorough architecture documentation and modeling.
Technology is neutral and results-oriented, unbiased toward any specific technology choice.
Ability to research and gain deep understanding of various technologies quickly and thoroughly.
Basic knowledge of financial models and budgeting and able to estimate the financial impact of technical architecture alternatives.
Experience in architecture modeling techniques and tools (ArchiMate modeling language highly desired).
Application and engagement of Lean/Agile frameworks and practices.
Business process design and technology modeling, tools, and techniques (e.g. Archi, Signavio).
Must have broad domain experience across multiple telecommunications disciplines, which could include: Data and/or information architecture; Contemporary software development practices; Principles of continuous integration and continuous delivery and DevOps; Automation and orchestration tools and disciplines; Knowledge of telecommunication core and access technologies; Virtualized and cloud compute platforms; Integration strategies and principles; Infrastructure and network architecture; Governance, security and compliance principles and best practices.
Proficient computer skills and MS Office knowledge (e.g., Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel) to complete job duties effectively.

Nice To Haves

CCAr, TOGAF, CEA, Certified SOA Architect, CITA, EACOE, Open CA, FEAC certifications.
Agile team leadership or project management experience.
Cloud certifications: Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud.
Telecommunications experience.
Other relevant telecom industry or job specific certifications.
ServiceNow certifications: Certified Technical Architect (CTA).

Responsibilities

Partner with business owners, product management, product owners, scrum teams, delivery leads, release train engineers, technical teams, solution architects, and enterprise architects to understand business outcomes, value stream needs, customer experience goals, ART objectives, and technology constraints.
Translate business capabilities, epics, features, and non-functional requirements into system intent, architectural guidance, enabler work, and technology recommendations that support iterative and incremental delivery.
Evaluate system options across applications, integrations, data, cloud, infrastructure, security, compliance, and operations, and recommend fit-for-purpose approaches that balance business value, cost, complexity, risk, technical debt, and sustainability.
Support SAFe and Agile planning events, including PI planning, backlog refinement, dependency identification, architecture reviews, system demos, inspect-and-adapt activities, and delivery alignment to ensure execution remains consistent with system intent, architectural runway, and enterprise architecture direction.
Facilitate architectural decision-making with stakeholders by clearly communicating tradeoffs, assumptions, constraints, risks, and implementation considerations in business and technical terms.
Maintain alignment between product roadmaps, value stream priorities, ART execution plans, architectural runway, compliance expectations, operational readiness, and continuous improvement objectives.
Create and maintain system architecture artifacts, including system solution context, capability maps, integration views, data flows, interface considerations, dependency maps, architecture decision records, and transition-state designs.
Define system guardrails, design constraints, acceptance considerations, enabler stories, and non-functional requirements for performance, resiliency, scalability, security, maintainability, observability, automation, and operational support.
Collaborate with engineering, application development, infrastructure, cloud, data, security, QA, and operations teams to ensure solution designs are executable, testable, deployable, supportable, and aligned to standards.
Identify cross-team and cross-ART dependencies, architectural risks, technical debt, sequencing considerations, and capacity impacts that may affect delivery predictability, release readiness, customer experience, or operational stability.
Support Agile delivery teams throughout implementation by clarifying system intent, reviewing design decisions, resolving architecture-related impediments, enabling timely decisions, and ensuring architecture enablers are visible in team and program backlogs.
Contribute to release, deployment, DevOps, operational readiness, support model, KPI, system demo, and post-implementation review activities to ensure delivered systems meet business, technical, and support expectations.
Apply IT standards, security requirements, compliance expectations, and technology governance processes in a pragmatic manner that supports Lean-Agile delivery flow and decentralized decision-making.
Contribute to reusable system solution patterns, reference architectures, decision frameworks, architecture repositories, templates, and practices that improve delivery consistency and architectural maturity.
Engage in architecture communities of practice, technical governance forums, and continuous improvement activities to promote shared learning, innovation, standardization, and simplification.
Stay current with SAFe, Agile, DevOps, cloud, integration, data, security, observability, and application modernization practices and apply relevant approaches to improve system outcomes.
Work collaboratively as a senior technical professional supporting business users, product management, and technical teams.
Contribute to documentation, template, process, and model repository.