Portfolio Architect - Distribution Field Services and Mobility

American Electric Power; Gahanna, Northern (OH, KY); Hybrid; USD 116,000 - 151,000; Full time

Job summary

American Electric Power, based in Gahanna, OH, seeks a senior Portfolio Architect to lead architecture across the Distribution Field Services and Mobility portfolio. You will shape strategy, align business and technology investments, and drive coherent current-state and target-state architectures.

The role requires guiding solution teams, governance participation, and collaboration with executives to reduce duplication and advance toward the targeted state while ensuring standards and security

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related technical field.
• 8 years of relevant work experience.
• Experience with architecture governance and LeanIX preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain current-state, target-state, and transition architectures for the portfolio.
• Create and maintain a multi-year portfolio architecture roadmap.
• Lead Application Portfolio Management using LeanIX to evaluate applications.

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related technical field

Tools

LeanIX

Job description

Portfolio Architect - Distribution Field Services and Mobility

Location: Gahanna, OH

Category : IT & Infrastructure

Job Summary

The Portfolio Architect serves as the senior architecture leader for the Distribution Field Services and Mobility portfolio. The role connects business strategy, operational capabilities, technology investments, and delivery by maintaining a coherent current-state, target-state, and transition architecture across the portfolio. The Portfolio Architect partners with business and technology leadership to shape portfolio strategy, inform investment decisions, improve application and technology health, reduce duplication and technical debt, and ensure initiatives advance the portfolio toward an agreed future state. The role applies Enterprise Architecture standards and guardrails while providing practical architectural direction to solution architects, engineering teams, product teams, and major programs. The Portfolio Architect is accountable for architecture coherence and direction across the portfolio. Delivery execution remains the responsibility of the appropriate project, product, engineering, and operational teams.

Job Description

What You’ll Do:

Essential Job Functions & Tasks:

• Develop and maintain current-state, target-state, and transition architectures for the portfolio, covering business capabilities, applications, data, integrations, platforms, infrastructure, security, resilience, and operational dependencies.

• Create and maintain a multi-year portfolio architecture roadmap that identifies modernization, consolidation, migration, rationalization, technical-debt reduction, and capability-enablement priorities.

• Partner with business and technology leaders to connect business outcomes and operational capabilities to technology strategy, ensuring architecture work is driven by measurable portfolio needs rather than isolated project requirements.

• Lead Application Portfolio Management for the assigned portfolio, using LeanIX and other authoritative sources to evaluate application ownership, business capability alignment, functional fit, technical fit, lifecycle, business criticality, cost, risk, and strategic disposition.

• Identify duplication, fragmentation, obsolescence, unsupported technology, integration complexity, resilience gaps, and security risks across the portfolio and develop prioritized remediation recommendations.

• Provide architectural input into six-quarter planning, demand intake, capital planning, and investment prioritization, clearly communicating options, dependencies, costs, risks, tradeoffs, and expected business outcomes.

• Ensure significant initiatives align with portfolio roadmaps, enterprise standards, reference architectures, approved platforms, security requirements, and regulatory obligations.

• Participate in architecture governance, including architecture reviews, standards discussions, technology evaluations, exception decisions, and escalation of unresolved risks to Enterprise Architecture or the Architecture Review Board.

• Guide solution architects and delivery teams in translating portfolio direction into implementable solution architectures while ensuring that solution-level decisions remain aligned with the target state.

• Coordinate cross-portfolio and cross-domain architecture decisions, particularly where Distribution Field Services and Mobility depend on asset management, work management, GIS, customer systems, data platforms, integration platforms, cybersecurity, cloud, or operational technology.

• Maintain architecture information and decision traceability in LeanIX and other approved repositories, including capability mappings, application relationships, technology dependencies, roadmaps, lifecycle positions, architecture decisions, and exceptions.

• Establish clear architecture outcomes and measures, such as reduction in application duplication, retirement of obsolete technology, remediation of critical risks, adoption of approved patterns, improved portfolio-data quality, and progress toward target-state capabilities.

• Mentor and provide architectural direction to solution architects, domain architects, engineers, and technical leaders supporting the portfolio.

• Communicate architecture decisions and portfolio direction in business, operational, financial, risk, and technical terms appropriate for executives, portfolio leaders, product teams, project teams, and engineering teams.

Additional Requirements:

• Demonstrated experience developing architecture across multiple applications, platforms, data domains, integrations, and delivery teams.

• Ability to connect business capabilities, operational processes, technology investments, and architecture roadmaps.

• Experience with application portfolio management, application rationalization, technical-debt analysis, lifecycle management, and modernization planning.

• Strong understanding of architecture governance, reference architectures, standards, exception management, and architecture decision records.

• Ability to assess complex options across business value, cost, risk, resilience, security, supportability, and long-term sustainability.

• Experience guiding architects and engineering teams without assuming ownership of project or product delivery.

• Ability to influence senior business and technology leaders through clear options, recommendations, roadmaps, and tradeoff analysis.

• Experience operating in regulated, safety-sensitive, asset-intensive, or utility environments is strongly preferred.

• Experience with enterprise architecture repositories and APM platforms, including LeanIX or comparable tools, is preferred.

What We're Looking For:

Education requirements are listed below:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related technical field is required.

Work Experience requirement listed below:

• 8 years of relevant work experience is required. An equivalent combination of education and related experience may be considered.

At AEP, we’re more than just an energy company — we’re a team of dedicated professionals committed to delivering safe, reliable, and innovative energy solutions. Guided by our mission to put the customer first, we strive to exceed expectations by listening, responding, and continuously improving the way we serve our communities. If you're passionate about making a meaningful impact and being part of a forward-thinking organization, this is the company for you!

Compensation

$116,255.00 - $151,132.50

Physical Demands

The Physical Demand Level for this job is: S – Sedentary Work: Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally (Occasionally: activity or condition exists up to 1/3 of the time) and/or a negligible amount of force frequently. (Frequently: activity or condition exists from 1/3 to 2/3 of the time) to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time but may involve walking or standing for brief periods of time. Jobs are sedentary if walking and standing are required only occasionally, and all other sedentary criteria are met.

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is hereby reaffirmed that it is the policy of American Electric Power (AEP) to provide Equal Employment Opportunity in all respects of the employer-employee relationship including recruiting, hiring, upgrading and promotion, conditions and privileges of employment, company sponsored training programs, educational assistance, social and recreational programs, compensation, benefits, transfers, discipline, layoffs and termination of employment to all employees and applicants without discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, veteran or military status, disability, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law. When required by law, we might record certain information or applicants for employment may be invited to voluntarily disclose protected characteristics.

“AEP offers an outstanding group of people to be a part of. The AEP culture values your integrity and awards your hard work.”

This role is responsible for shaping how Technology plans, evaluates, and measures investments and outcomes. This position is responsible for defining and scaling best practices for business planning, investment governance, and value realization across the Technology portfolio.A key focus of this role is building and maintaining forward-looking business and investment plans, ensuring alignment between strategy, funding, delivery, and measurable outcomes. You will enable a more disciplined, transparent, and performance-driven portfolio through strong analytical frameworks, standardized processes, and actionable insights.

Part of a larger team delivering high quality technology solutions to the business. Design, develop and install software solutions. Build high-quality, innovative and fully performing software in compliance with internal architecture, development & design standards & best practices. Design, modify, develop, write, implement and troubleshoot software programming applications. Support and/or install software applications. Participate in the testing process through test review and analysis, test witnessing and certification of software. Works within a Waterfall or Agile methodology/framework based team. Collaborates heavily with Project Management, Business Analyst and Infrastructure Job Families.

Part of a larger team delivering high quality Computer, Network, Storage and End-User Infrastructure technology solutions, on-going support to the business. Independently completes and leads the largest and most complex infrastructure project assignments. Plan, research, evaluate, design, and engineer the enterprise's technology infrastructure. Provide technical support and troubleshooting, cost estimates, justifications, and recommendations. Produces technical documentation, support and configuration. Helps manage, plan, and maintain technical platforms including upgrading systems. Monitor system performance, and install and configure hardware. Responsible for collaborating with other Job Families such as Project Managers, Architects, Solution Engineers, Technicians, Business Analysts to deliver consistent, reliable technology solutions that leverage AEP's technology standards, architectures and best practices.

AEP offers generous time off, competitive pay, and educational opportunities to help employees advance their careers.

Our culture is purpose-driven and team-oriented: we combine innovation with a customer-first focus to deliver reliable energy and brighter futures.