The Enterprise Architect is the person who holds the long view while everyone else is executing in the short. They bring legitimate frameworks to a team that doesn’t always speak that language yet — translating architecture discipline into the vernacular of our business: what it costs, who owns it, and what we’re building toward. This is a senior individual contributor role with broad cross-functional reach and significant influence without formal authority.
This role is not advisory. It is not governance. It is a hands-on, outcomes-oriented position for someone who can ideate and land the plane.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Architecture Strategy & Decision Leadership
- Lead build vs. buy evaluations end-to-end: structured analysis, clear recommendation, accountable follow-through. Options are an input; a decision is the deliverable.
- Own and maintain the enterprise application portfolio — capability maps, cost models, rationalization recommendations, and TCO discipline that drives real action, not slide decks.
- Define and advance composable, API-first architecture patterns that reduce re-platforming risk and increase solution modularity over time.
- Engage early on priority initiatives to evaluate solution options, pressure-test assumptions, and ensure new capabilities fit the broader landscape.
Cross-Functional Partnership
- Serve as a heavy partner to the data architecture function — bringing enterprise lineage perspective when data sprawl needs tracing, without taking ownership from the data team.
- Participate as the enterprise architecture voice in integration design and iPaaS strategy discussions (MuleSoft, SAP CPI); provide direction grounded in portfolio-level thinking, not just point-to-point solutions.
- Collaborate with SAP S/4HANA and SaaS solution architects to align domain-level decisions with enterprise standards and roadmap.
- Translate fluidly between technology and business stakeholders across supply chain, finance, and commercial functions.
Capability Building
- Informally elevate the broader community of architect-adjacent practitioners across the enterprise — introducing frameworks, normalizing vocabulary, and growing collective maturity through the work itself.
- Champion MVP-first architecture thinking: identify what’s needed now, what can wait, and how to position today’s decisions for tomorrow’s scale.
- Model and advance AI-augmented ways of working within the EA function to compress delivery cycle times on traditionally slow outputs.
QUALIFICATIONS
Required
- 8+ years of enterprise or solution architecture experience with a track record of owning decisions end-to-end, not just advising on them
- Demonstrated experience with ERP ecosystems — SAP S/4HANA specifically; knows where the seams are and what breaks at scale
- Integration architecture exposure sufficient to hold a substantive point of view in the room (MuleSoft, SAP CPI, Boomi, or equivalent)
- Application rationalization experience with real data: cost models, capability assessments, and retirement recommendations that were implemented
- Fluency in BPM and process architecture — ability to read a broken process and determine whether technology is the solution or the symptom
- Working knowledge of EA frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman, or equivalent) applied pragmatically, not ceremonially
- Demonstrated ability to influence without authority across technical and business stakeholders
- Experience in a high-growth, fast-moving operating environment — not just consulting engagements into one
- Active, practical use of AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, etc.) to accelerate architecture work — fit-gap analysis, documentation, pattern generation
Preferred
- Experience in CPG, retail, or similarly fast-cycle consumer industries
- Exposure to composable architecture and MACH principles
- Familiarity with Coupa or comparable indirect procurement platforms
- Prior experience upskilling or informally leading a distributed architect community