Staff Systems Architect

GCI Communication Corp • Anchorage, AK

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

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

• A combination of relevant work experience and/or education sufficient to perform the duties of the job may substitute to meet the total years required on a year-for-year basis
• 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.
• Proficient computer skills and MS Office knowledge (e.g., Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel) to complete job duties effectively.
• Ability to work shifts as assigned, work in standard office/home office setting, and operate standard office equipment.
• Ability to accurately communicate information and ideas to others effectively.
• Ability to make valid judgments and decisions.
• Must work well in a team environment and be able to work with a diverse group of people and customers.
• Virtual workers must comply with remote work policies and agreements.

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)
• 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).
• 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.

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.

Benefits

• The company and its subsidiaries operate in a 24/7 environment providing critical services to Alaskans and may need to respond to public health and safety matters or other business emergencies. As such, you will be requested to provide emergency after-hour contact numbers, to include your home and cell phone numbers if you have those services.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level