EY - Associate Director - Enterprise Solution Architect

Job Summary:

The Enterprise Solution Architect Associate Director is responsible for the architectural leadership and delivery of architecture for a project and is a senior architectural resource in their respective domain, working under the direction of the EA Leadership Team. Ensures the alignment of the IT Strategy to the broader organization's mission, strategy / objectives, capabilities, and processes using industry recognized architectural models. Expands the company's use of technology as a strategic enabler of goals and objectives, realizing global business benefits whilst empowering local service innovation. Responsible for coordination and delivery of important and complex future planning activities to enable key business service, process, organizational and technology initiatives. They engage directly with business sponsors to conceptualize architectural approaches, develop solution architectures to confirm that the proposed architecture will meet the defined business needs. They validate that the engineering design will satisfy the architectural solution. Guides and mentors teams on methodologies, processes and best practices according to EY's Architecture Frameworks and supports the development and maintenance of these frameworks and approaches, including technical / functional logical modelling, architecture governance, and tooling. Associate directors execute on the maturity plan developed by EA leadership intended to ensure delivery of seamless, end-to-end Enterprise Architecture Services.

Essential Functions of the Job:

- Collaborates with other EA Domains in executing the Solution Architecture responsibilities, to develop clear architecture plans, driving towards the appropriate balance of cost, risk and quality, and effectively and consistently communicates this to stakeholders

- Sets architectural direction, builds consensus, mediates conflicts, and helps to create an environment which solicits positive contributions from all participants, including Enterprise Architects, engineering teams, project managers, business analysts, test teams, Information Security and Operations

- Enforces architecture governance structures, methodologies (architecture and engineering) and compliance activities to maintain regulatory compliance and enterprise standards

- Communicates feedback to the EA leadership team that helps improve and evolve the quality and type of EA services provided

- Support communicating the value and promoting usage and harvesting of EA asset content, it's leveraging via logical frameworks and use in enterprise-wide road mapping

- Supports the development of recommendations regarding enterprise architecture tools and strategies to support the continuing improvement of EA, defining their potential impacts or benefits

- Cultivates and builds relationships across business, IT and vendors / analysts to gather intelligence and bring insight about the wider enterprise picture and enable the leveraging of emerging industry standards and approaches within EA

- Supports the development and implementation of an ongoing communication plan to educate stakeholders on the purpose and benefits of Solution Architecture

Analytical/Decision-Making Responsibilities:

- Strong analytical skills capable of assessing complex business requirements from real world scenarios and the ability to translate them into actionable target architectures, readily understood models and architectural plans

- Deep technical proficiency while the ability to keeping an eye on the bigger picture

- Ability to identify, prioritize and weigh different options, balancing business, cost and technology priorities to determine a best solution

- Strong client-facing facilitation skills and business acumen needed to help business leaders and program managers understand how to apply complex IT / Architecture concepts to solve business problems

- Contributing to and driving global technology standards proposals and filing exceptions as required

- Provides thought leadership into the evolution of the Solution Architecture function, working collaboratively with managers, peers and analysts

- Directs and provides guidance and thought leadership to an Architecture team so that architectural assets, concepts and solutions are built in line with Enterprise Architecture principles

- Drives the creation of relevant and meaningful solution architectures, re-usable assets and other deliverables that enables the overall business thus driving better performance

- Manages the solution architecture for their program and is accountable for maturing its architectural linkages across the other Enterprise Architecture frameworks

Knowledge and Skills Requirements:

General:

- Works within a virtual Architecture team to align with overall Enterprise Architecture objectives

- Strong analytical skills

- Good leadership skills, coupled with exceptional judgment and tact.

- Strong expertise in industry standard Enterprise and Solution Architecture Frameworks and Governance

- Ability to translate business needs into Solution Architecture requirements, and estimate the financial and architectural impact of alternatives

- Ability to rapidly comprehend the changes to key business processes and the impact on the overall architecture

- Strong verbal and written communication skills

- Attention to detail and strong organizational skills

- Ability to manage multiple tasks/projects in a fast-paced environment

- Ability to work effectively with clients and team members across multiple geographies

- Good relationship building, facilitation and influencing skills and experience of leveraging these on both ITS and business leadership contexts

- Flexibility to adjust to multiple demands, shifting priorities, ambiguity, and rapid change

Domain Specific:

- Experience in architecture modeling at the solution level, including logical models for process, data, applications, and technology

- Experience in development of architecture plans

- Awareness of infrastructure technologies, architectures, standards and processes, and a good understanding of infrastructure engineering processes

- Excellent knowledge of application technologies, architectures, standards and processes, and a good understanding of application engineering processes - namely on the Microsoft technology stack (.NET, SQL, Azure, etc.)

- Good knowledge of very large scale enterprise IT programs, with good architectural and program management understanding

- Good knowledge of industry standard Enterprise Architecture Frameworks and Governance models, with experience in applying these to successfully establish / transform these capabilities within global / multinational organizations

Supervision Responsibilities (May apply if in counselor/team lead role):

- Prioritizes deadlines and provides supervision of team members supporting strategic EA-level architecture activities

- Where applicable, provides leadership to delivers results through others, leveraging the ability to lead through influence

- Strong influencing skills are required to work with other departments or leaders and encourage effective feedback for all team members with stakeholders beyond the Enterprise Architecture group

- Knowledge on Robotics Process Automation platforms is desirable.

Other Requirements:

Regular international and domestic travel. Reasonable extension of the working day should be expected commensurate with the needs to fulfil the obligations of the role

Job Requirements:

Education:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience

Experience:

Minimum of 14 plus years of relevant work experience with 5 plus years of team / virtual team management experience.

Certification Requirements:

Any EA certification is preferred (eg TOGAF) but not mandatory