Senior Enterprise Architecture Leader

Sammons Financial Group Inc.

West Des Moines (IA)

On-site

USD 160,000 - 267,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health coverage for you/

ESOP and 401(k) enrollment

Friday afternoons off

Generous paid time off

Tuition reimbursement

Professional development opportunities

Volunteer time off

Nonprofit matching gift program

Ownership culture

Job summary

Sammons Financial Group is seeking a strategic Enterprise Architecture leader to define and govern the target-state technology architecture across the company’s technology and business units. You will chair the Enterprise Architecture Review Board, guide roadmaps for applications, data, cloud, and security, and drive modernization with a federated governance model.

The role requires extensive enterprise architecture leadership, strong communication, and ability to balance enterprise standards

Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in field relevant to role preferred
Master's Degree in field relevant to role or equivalent work experience preferred
15+ years progressive technology experience, including significant enterprise architecture leadership preferred
8-10 years' of leading architecture teams or direct leadership of technical teams preferred
Full lifecycle experience as a senior level architect on multiple complex enterprise/strategic solutions preferred
Effective verbal and written communications skills and the ability to communicate with and influence business & tech partners
Problem solving skills sufficient to perform research and recommend a proposed solution to problems
Able to work on multiple tasks and meet established deadlines
Able to effectively influence matrixed team members across the organization
Knowledge of computer programming languages as required for the system
Established leadership track record of human capital management and succession principles, practices, and procedures
Demonstrated effective negotiating and influence leadership skills
Demonstrated ability to present and adapt ideas in a business and user friendly language
Enterprise Architecture/Cloud Architecture certifications preferred
May be required to travel to a company office or location other than your normal workplace for trainings, meetings, conferences or to support business needs.

Responsibilities

Define, maintain, and evolve the enterprise target-state technology architecture, ensuring alignment with business strategies, enterprise technology priorities, and long-term transformation objectives.
Develop and govern integrated enterprise architecture roadmaps spanning applications, integration, data, AI, cloud, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and enterprise platforms in partnership with accountable functional leaders.
Establish enterprise architecture principles, reference architectures, standards, and reusable design patterns that promote interoperability, resilience, scalability, simplification, and technology modernization.
Establish and lead a federated enterprise architecture governance framework, including architecture review processes, decision rights, design standards, exceptions, and escalation procedures.
Chair the Enterprise Architecture Review Board and lead the architectural evaluation component of technology acquisition reviews, ensuring major technology decisions align with enterprise standards and target-state architecture.
Partner with business-unit technology and enterprise platform leaders to guide strategic solution designs, evaluate architectural tradeoffs, and balance enterprise consistency with appropriate business-unit flexibility.
Provide architecture guidance for major technology investments, acquisitions, business integrations, and enterprise transformation initiatives, identifying opportunities for technology reuse, consolidation, and long-term scalability.
Establish an enterprise technology lifecycle and technical debt framework, identifying and prioritizing modernization, consolidation, rationalization, and retirement opportunities in collaboration with accountable technology leaders.
Guide architectural evaluation of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, agentic capabilities, cloud-native solutions, integration platforms, and advanced data technologies, ensuring appropriate enterprise readiness and alignment.
Establish architectural frameworks and reference patterns for secure, scalable, and interoperable adoption of emerging capabilities, partnering with Cybersecurity, Data, AI, and Enterprise Platform leaders on functional requirements and controls.
Lead and develop the Enterprise Architecture practice, including direct leadership of assigned architects and matrixed collaboration with architects across business-unit technology organizations.
Establish architecture methods, competency expectations, documentation standards, tools, and a community of practice that promotes consistent architectural quality and knowledge sharing.
Maintain enterprise architecture visibility through business capability maps, current-state and target-state architectures, technology portfolio information, and architectural decision records.
Define and report architecture effectiveness measures, including standards adoption, technology reuse, rationalization progress, technical debt trends, and governance effectiveness.
Serve as a strategic technology architecture advisor to senior technology leaders, business unit technology, and executive leadership, communicating architectural direction, tradeoffs, risks, and implications of major technology decisions.
Build strong partnerships across enterprise and business-unit technology organizations, influencing architectural alignment and promoting collaborative decision-making without unnecessarily constraining business-unit accountability.
Develop architecture talent, succession capabilities, and organizational maturity while promoting continuous improvement, innovation, and adherence to Sammons Financial Group Companies' shared values.
Drive and reinforce commitment to internal controls processes such as those under Model Audit Rule and Record Information Management.
Commitment to embrace Sammons Financial Group Companies shared values (Accountability, Connection, Openness, Respect and Integrity).
As stated within the Company Attendance and Punctuality policy, regular attendance is required and expected in order to meet the business service levels and workflow demands.
Participate in other initiatives and/or projects as necessary.