Enterprise Architect

Forrest T. Jones & Company; Kansas City (MO); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

STD/LTD and Life insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid time off

Job summary

Forrest T. Jones & Company is seeking an Enterprise Architect to align technology investments with business strategy, defining a future-state roadmap and guiding modernization efforts across applications, data, and cloud services.

The role partners with IT leadership to establish governance, manage technical debt, and ensure cost-efficient, secure, and scalable solutions for a regulated industry. Strong communication with executives and vendors is essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in an IT-related field.
• 10+ years of progressive IT experience, including 5+ years in enterprise architecture or IT leadership.
• Experience with technology roadmaps, portfolio management, modernization, technical debt, and governance.
• Strong understanding of Azure, data architecture, integration patterns, and security principles.
• Ability to influence decisions and communicate with executives, business leaders, and vendors.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain FTJ's enterprise technology strategy and 3–5 year roadmap.
• Translate business priorities into actionable technology investments and modernization plans.
• Advise leadership on platform direction and future-state capabilities.
• Establish and maintain the enterprise application portfolio and document ownership, value, cost, lifecycle, and risk.
• Lead application rationalization and identify modernization, migration, or retirement opportunities.
• Develop health and technical debt scorecards to guide prioritization.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to connect strategy with execution.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Technology strategy

Stakeholder communication

Cloud platforms (Azure)

Architecture governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in IT, CS, business, engineering, or related field

Job description

Fidelity Security Life Insurance Company, and its affiliates ("FSL"), provide insurance and insurance-related services to clients, corporations, employers and individuals. These services include providing benefits through innovative life and health insurance plans, financial services, and customized insurance products for niche markets.

Position Summary

The Enterprise Architect aligns FTJ's technology investments, applications, platforms, data, integrations, and cloud services with business strategy. This position serves as a trusted advisor to business and IT leadership, establishing the future-state technology roadmap and guiding decisions to modernize the technology portfolio, reduce technical debt, control cost, and manage risk.

Key Responsibilities

Technology Strategy and Roadmaps

• Develop and maintain FTJ's enterprise technology strategy and three-to-five-year roadmap.
• Translate business priorities into actionable technology, modernization, and investment plans.
• Evaluate technology trends and recommend opportunities that improve business value, efficiency, customer experience, or risk management.
• Advise leadership on technology investments, platform direction, and future-state capabilities.

Application Portfolio and Technical Debt

• Establish and maintain the enterprise application portfolio as FTJ's authoritative system of record.
• Document application ownership, business value, cost, lifecycle, dependencies, criticality, supportability, and risk.
• Lead application rationalization to identify opportunities to invest, modernize, migrate, consolidate, replace, tolerate, or retire.
• Develop application health and technical debt scorecards that support investment prioritization.
• Identify unsupported technologies, key-person dependencies, and other operational risks requiring remediation.

Architecture and Technology Governance

• Establish practical architecture principles, standards, reference patterns, and decision frameworks.
• Review major technology investments, application acquisitions, integrations, cloud services, and modernization initiatives.
• Promote consistency across applications, platforms, data, integrations, security controls, and cloud environments.
• Partner with Application Development, Infrastructure and IT Operations, Security, PMO, data teams, business leaders, and vendors to connect strategy with execution.

Cloud, Data, Integration, and Innovation

• Define strategic direction for Azure, application hosting, enterprise data, APIs, integrations, and platform selection.
• Support cloud governance focused on cost, security, resilience, supportability, and architectural consistency.
• Evaluate AI, automation, analytics, and emerging technologies through controlled, business-justified initiatives.
• Balance innovation with operational readiness, risk, cost, and long-term sustainability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, business, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Ten or more years of progressive IT experience, including five or more years in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, technology strategy, or IT leadership.
• Demonstrated experience with technology roadmaps, application portfolio management, modernization, technical debt, and architecture governance.
• Strong understanding of enterprise applications, Azure or comparable cloud platforms, data architecture, integration patterns, and security principles.
• Ability to influence decisions and communicate effectively with executives, business leaders, technical teams, and vendors.
• Insurance, financial services, employee benefits, or other regulated-industry experience preferred.
• Familiarity with TOGAF or similar architecture practices preferred, with an emphasis on pragmatic application rather than process overhead.

Measures of Success

• A complete application portfolio with defined ownership, lifecycle, cost, dependency, and risk information.
• An approved enterprise technology roadmap aligned with FTJ's business priorities.
• Actionable application health, technical debt, and lifecycle reporting.
• Measurable progress in application rationalization and legacy modernization.
• Reduced redundancy, unsupported technology, operational complexity, and concentrated knowledge risk.
• More consistent, transparent, and cost-conscious technology investment decisions.

We offer comprehensive benefits to full-time employees including company-paid medical, STD, LTD and life insurance plus voluntary dental, vision, life/AD&D insurance, 401(k) with company matching, generous paid time off and much more.

We encourage applicants of all ages and experience, as we do not discriminate on the basis of an applicant's age.

ALL OFFERS OF EMPLOYMENT ARE CONTINGENT UPON THE PASSING OF A DRUG SCREEN AND BACKGROUND CHECK.