Manager Enterprise Architect I

Primary Responsibilities:

Core Positioning:

• Serves as the EA Director's right-hand person with full visibility into what every EA team member is working on and the overall progress of the EA function at any point in time
• Understands EA well enough to guide, drive, and hold EAs accountable toward delivering business value - does not need to be a practicing EA or a "super EA"
• Maintains enough technical literacy to understand what EAs are working on, ask the right probing questions, and detect whether work is substantive or theoretical hand-waving
• Acts as a counterbalance to EA's natural tendency toward over-theorizing, excessive principle-orientation, and talking without delivering
• Keeps the EA team grounded in practical, value-driven output rather than abstract frameworks

People Management:

• Serves as the direct manager for enterprise architects - owns performance management, career development, goal setting, and retention
• Conducts regular 1:1s and facilitates skills development and growth opportunities
• Maintains deep awareness of each EA team member's individual capabilities, strengths, and growth areas
• Works directly with the EA Director to align team member assignments to their skills and development needs
• Manages capacity and allocation across architects
• Onboards new EA team members
• Provides air cover and removes organizational obstacles so architects can do their best work

Work Management & Delivery:

• Owns the EA team's intake process - triages architecture requests, assigns them to the right architect(s), and tracks to completion
• Maintains the EA work backlog and communicates capacity constraints and prioritization tradeoffs to leadership
• Tracks and reports on deliverables, milestones, and business value across all EA workstreams
• Leads program/project management for EA-led initiatives - owns the cross-team plan, coordinates dependencies, drives decisions, and holds all parties accountable to commitments
• Maintains active engagement on externally-led initiatives that impact EA - tracks progress, surfaces risks early, and ensures EA deliverables and milestones are met within the broader program timeline
• Ensures administrative rigor across the EA function - dotting the i's and crossing the t's

Stakeholder & External Engagement:

• Serves as the primary external face of EA for coordination and communication within IT departments and with corporate planning
• Serves as the liaison between EA and the ISLT, EAG, and corporate planning
• Manages stakeholder expectations and ensures EA outputs are communicated clearly to non-EA audiences

EA Practice Development:

• Oversees development and maintenance of reference architectures, standards, and patterns that the broader delivery organization can consume
• Ensures architecture decisions are documented, communicated, and enforced consistently across the enterprise
• Manages the exception/waiver process - tracks dispensations, ensures they are time-bound and reviewed
• Maintains the EA roadmap and ensures it stays current as priorities evolve

Knowledge & Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree IT or equivalent. Minimum 10 years’ experience supervising a team in information systems development.
• Has accountability for the performance and results of multiple related units.
• Works with leadership to develop departmental plans, including business, production, operational and/or organizational priorities.
• Proven ability to demonstrate leadership on corporate projects, ensuring proper focus and direction is given to each one based on priorities.
• Helps assign priority levels and helps redirect resources toward highest priorities.
• Effective in a variety of formal presentation settings both internally and externally.
• Requires the ability to command attention, manage group processes; and change tactics midstream when a situation requires it.
• Requires the ability to manage multiple tasks, cope with deadlines, and a heavy workload.
• Requires the ability to mentor and grow a staff of Enterprise Architects.
• Experience working in IT space using Agile methodology and tools.
• Must possess and apply knowledge of and adherence to Company philosophy, corporate goals, and personnel policies.
• Works with leadership to develop departmental plans, including business, production, operational and/or organizational priorities.

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