IT Solutions Architect

Job Description

We are hiring for an IT Architect within our Digital Experience team at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

About the Role

This architect role supports the digital experience platform including member portal, member mobile, public and retail applications.

The architect will partner with business stakeholders to understand the business strategy, discuss solutions and options taking into consideration the Future state ecosystem. Once a solution is developed, the architect will create a ROM, candidate architecture and actively participate in the project delivery team. The architect becomes a trusted partner within business and IT across the Enterprise.

In this IT Architect opportunity, you will:

• Analyze the different elements of business process and technology that can be applied to solve a specific problem
• Propose a combination of building blocks that provides the best possible solution within the Enterprise
• Design a solution for an existing or new problem and support the tasks and activities that are involved with its successful implementation
• Provide overall direction, guidance, definition, and facilitation for the development of an architecture (current and future state) required to meet business strategies and goals
• Conceive solutions, build consensus, and sell/execute solutions
• Interact with the business partners, vendors, and technical resources
• Develop, writes, and communicates the architectural roadmap to technical resources
• Work on multiple highly complex projects that require in-depth knowledge of two or more functional architecture areas such as security, data, or systems

Departmental Preferences:

• Prior experience in IT Technologies, architecture/design, Java, Spring, JavaScript, JSON and RESTful services disciplines
• Prior experience with Cloud Technologies & API Platforms, SOA standards - involving AWS, GCP, MuleSoft, BigData/Informatics Cloud Platforms, OKTA, SOAP, REST, WSDL, JSON, XSLT etc.
• Hands-on Knowledge or Experience with Front-end frameworks like Angular JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, JQuery, AJAX, GraphQL.
• Prior experience with Application Build & Integration involving Security and Privacy standards, e.g. HIPAA, HITRUST, ISO27001 etc.

Additional aspects/functions of the role may include:

Provide overall direction, guidance, definition and facilitation for the development of an architecture and its use within the enterprise to deliver business value through technology. Support the planning and decision-making process to determine the fit of technology components into the enterprise architecture. Create technology strategy, vision, roadmaps, business and IT capability models, and conceptual and logical design. Work collaboratively with product, platform and service owners to evolve and align the technology vision including evaluation and selection. Work as a lead or internal consultant on moderately complex assignments and/or projects/programs that require intermediate technical knowledge of a particular field of specialization, such as security, information/data, integration, technical or business.

• Participate in aspects of architectural vision and strategy development, including environmental analysis, opportunity identification, value cases and technology innovation portfolio development.
• Work with other IT staff in the implementation and use of roadmaps.
• Develop architectural requirements at domain, project or portfolio level. Assists other Architects in working with product, platform, and/or service owners and business leaders, when needed, to understand business requirements and help them understand how technology trade-offs influence strategy.
• Perform summary analysis of business and IT capabilities and may work with business peers to develop and present business capability models and roadmaps to facilitate discussion and decision making with stakeholders across the enterprise. Develops business capability models.
• Create and modify logical designs and architecture by reviewing end-user topology, security, performance, and interoperability requirements.
• Perform architecture implementation and modification activities. Participate in architectural reviews and evaluations.
• Work with project, product, and service teams to understand business requirements and help them understand how technology trade-offs influence strategy
• Develop, motivate, and mentor IT members to create a team environment. Coach team members.
• Evaluate options, risks, costs versus benefits, system impacts, and technology priorities in moderately complex situations. Collaborates on delivery management reporting status, issues, risks, and benefits.
• Research emerging technology, competitive threats, deficiencies, and industry and market trends to assist in product development and/or operational support activities. Assist in developing technology recommendations, based on business relevance, appropriate timing and deployment complexity.
• Participate in the architectural governance process. Work on exceptions to architectural standards at a specialized/portfolio level and escalates to the appropriate level for action.
• Assist with post-implementation continuous-improvement efforts and in analyzing the current architecture to identify weaknesses and develop opportunities for improvements.

• Bachelor's degree in related field preferred.
• Five (5) years of experience in IT and business/industry (architecture design and deployment, systems lifecycle management, infrastructure planning and operations, etc.) required.
• Exposure to multiple diverse technologies and processing environments required.
• Ability to self-motivate, take initiative and endure leadership skills to seek out work and accomplish goals.
• Decision making and critical thinking abilities to relate to and understand issues to reach productive decisions.
• Extensive experience in client relationship management through knowledge and ability to determine and satisfy client needs and maintain a partnering relationship during engagements.
• Knowledge of techniques, roles, and responsibilities to provide consultative knowledge internally and externally.
• Ability to drive consensus on complex matters involving diverse stakeholders where there may be varying points of view.
• Understanding of the business processes in area assigned.

Solution-Security

• Work closely with other functional area architects and security specialists to ensure appropriate security solutions are in place throughout all IT systems and platforms to mitigate identified risks sufficiently, and to meet business objectives, regulatory requirements, and industry and domain best practices
• Assist in managing relationships with business teams using cloud to plan for upcoming requirements, and work to communicate with and involves key staff in the maintenance and growth of the security architecture
• Recommend cloud security tools and controls including existing enterprise tools that can be extended to the cloud, cloud-native security controls, and third-party offerings. 4. Work to understand and leverages Cloud Security Access Brokers (CASBs), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), and Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP) tools
• Work to become proficient in applicable cloud native security tooling. 6. Participate in securing application platforms, which includes creating and implementing secure coding and configuration standards

Solution-Technical

• Participate in building and supporting the technical architecture needed to generate sustained, differentiating value for the business
• Contribute to developing the technology architecture that enables and drives new business capabilities and operating models
• Participate in defining requirements, principles, and models that guide technology decisions for the enterprise
• Assist in establishing the long-term journey and incremental path with enterprise roadmaps
• Support digital innovation by leveraging new technologies and approaches to renovate, extend, and transform the existing core technology base and IT estate
• Facilitate the research, evaluation, and selection of hardware and software technology and product standards

Solution-Information

• Assist in the creation of the information architecture and information management strategy for the organization
• Collaborate with business, solution, and enterprise architects to understand the implications of respective architectures on information architecture and maximize the value of information across the organization
• Visualize what information matters most to the organization based on defined business strategy
• Create and manage business information models in all their forms, including conceptual models, relational database designs, message models, and others
• Aid efforts to improve business performance through enterprise information solutions and capabilities, such as master data management (MDM), metadata management, analytics, content management, data integration, and related information management or information infrastructure components
• Ensure existing data/information assets are identified, stewarded, and leveraged across the enterprise

Solution-Integration

• Analyze enterprise business context (trends and business strategy), as well as change requirements in other architecture viewpoints, to make recommendations about the integration architecture future state
• Analyze the current technology environment to detect critical deficiencies and makes recommendations regarding solutions for improvement
• Design and create modern API endpoints that allow ad hoc integrators to integrate with legacy systems
• Assist in designing and creating a self-service platform that development teams can use to create their own integration flows when required
• Provide recommendations regarding when to use as-a-service integration versus an integration software stack managed in-house
• Work on the integration layer blueprint (logical architecture, data flow diagram, deployment architecture, etc.) while identifying new disruptive technologies to provide business value

Business

• Assist in defining strategies, principles, and standards to guide business architecture efforts across the organization
• Contribute to the analysis of the organization's digital strategy and how the organization currently approaches digital innovation and monetization
• Work to develop an enterprise understanding of the core and supporting processes of the business, including the people, resources, and systems involved
• Assess near-term and long-term needs, to establish business IT investment priorities
• Create business models and roadmaps and assesses capability and process gaps between the current and future states
• Work with enterprise architects and key organizational stakeholders to define a strategic plan for leveraging integrated business architecture as part of the enterprise architecture

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, among other grounds, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, gender identity, protected veteran status or status as an individual with a disability.

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