Director of IT Architecture

Company Description

The Office of Innovation & Technology (OIT) is the central IT agency for the City of Philadelphia headed by the Chief Information Officer (CIO). OIT oversees all major information and communications technology initiatives for the City of Philadelphia - increasing the effectiveness of the information technology infrastructure, where the services provided are advanced, optimized, and responsive to the needs of the City of Philadelphia’s businesses, residents, and visitors. OIT responsibilities include: identifying the most effective approach for implementing new information technology directions throughout city government; improving the value of the city’s technology assets and the return on the city’s technology investments; ensuring data security continuity; planning for continuing operations in the event of disruption of information technology or communications services; and supporting accountable, efficient and effective government across every city department, board, commission and agency.

Job Description

Under supervision of Chief Technology Officer the Director of Architecture is responsible for leading the enterprise architecture function and a solution architecture function. They ensure alignment between architectural roadmaps, business strategies, and enterprise transformation activities. This role will manage a team of enterprise & solution architects and collaborate with senior leadership to develop and execute organizational strategy, support enterprise change, and optimize technology investments.

Principal Responsibilities: Oversee daily activities of the Enterprise & Solution Architects and related staff; provide direction and supervision to a cloud support team.

Architecture:

• Establish and enforce architectural principles, standards, and governance to ensure consistency and interoperability across the enterprise
• Take a holistic view of the organization, considering how different projects and systems interact and contribute to the overall architecture.
• Create and maintain comprehensive enterprise architecture models, encompassing business, data, application, and technology domains.
• Develop and maintain technology roadmaps, guiding the evolution of the IT landscape to meet future business requirements.
• Evaluate and recommend technologies and oversee the integration of these solutions into the overall enterprise architecture.
• Consider factors such as reliability, scalability, flexibility, and security in the architecture decisions to ensure long-term success of the City.
• Evaluate new technologies and tools to determine their suitability for integration into product and enterprise-wide architecture.

Leadership:

• Collaborate with leaders from various departments to understand business needs and ensure that IT initiatives support broader organizational objectives.
• Provide guidance to product, solution architects, development teams, ensuring adherence to architectural principles and best practices throughout the software development lifecycle
• Identify and mitigate potential risks related to technology solutions, ensuring security, compliance, and scalability.
• Manages risks associated with technology decisions, considering factors like compliance, security, and longterm sustainability.
• Collaborate with IT Security & Governance to ensure compliance and approved pathways to production for all domain initiatives.

Requirements

• Proficiency in architecture modeling tools and languages.

• Strong knowledge of relevant technologies, frameworks, and design patterns.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to address complex architectural challenges.

• Ability to adapt to evolving technologies and business needs.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to effectively collaborate with diverse teams and stakeholders.

• Ability to manage project budgets, timelines, and resources while maintaining a high level of quality in deliverables

Qualifications

• Requires a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
•  7+ years of experience in software development, architecture and design with a proven track record of successful project delivery.
• Additional:
  • Able to provide strong references successfully demonstrating such abilities and experience as defined above
  • Employment is contingent upon passing a CJIS background check • The employee must be a City of Philadelphia resident within six months of hire

Additional Suggested Skillsets

• Security and HIPAA compliance in networked solution(s)

• Experience with monitoring and alerting software tools and systems, such as Solar Winds, What’s Up Gold, PagerDuty, Better Stack

• Understanding of AWS/Azure Virtual and Cloud environments

Additional Information

Salary Range: $110,000-$125,000

Please submit a resume and cover letter with your application.

The City of Philadelphia is an Equal Opportunity employer and does not permit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, marital status, source of income, familial status, genetic information or domestic or sexual violence victim status. If you believe you were discriminated against, call the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations at 215-686-4670 or send an email to for more information, go to: Human Relations Website at: http://www.phila.gov/humanrelations

The successful candidate must reside in the City of Philadelphia or establish primary residence in the City of Philadelphia within 6 months of employment.