Architect III

1. The Application Architect is responsible for the design and maintenance of the application or services architecture in alignment with the organization's application strategy. 
2. Assesses the impact of the business architecture on existing and future applications. 
3. Keeps abreast of industry trends and evolution of domain area. 
4. Captures the requirements for future application architecture changes and identifies the techniques and technologies that should be applied at the application level. 
5. Helps define the system and operational requirements that the computing infrastructure must support. Identifies, analyzes and addresses any application interdependencies and interfaces. 
6. Works with other architects and technicians to determine the most appropriate application environment to achieve performance and scalability requirements. 

The Application Architect is responsible for the overall integrity and health of the applications or services across multiple projects and releases. Work with Business Analyst and solution architect to understand the application’s role in each project, ensuring that a cohesive and comprehensive application solution is created. 

• Provide expert knowledge of technical, middleware and application architecture, and serve as Subject Matter Expert (SME) to business, operations and technology teams on those topics 
• Establish and maintain SOA and Integration Center of Excellence (CoE) 
  
• Establish enterprise architecture standards, technical reference model, best practices 
  
• Assess current state of applications and services architecture and make recommendations to align with best practices 
  
• Review business drivers, needs and strategies with Business and solution architects to understand implications for application and middleware architecture 
• Provide input to the solution architect in the development of project initiation documents, including the definition of objectives, scope, approach, and deliverables 
• Identify software components the application will use for implementation and provide instruction on how to appropriately implement application components using the respective hardware and software. 
• Works in close collaboration with the infrastructure architect(s) to ensure hardware/software compatibility and cohesiveness. 
  

Identify how generic application components can be implemented (blueprints); for example how application components: 

• Persist and make data accessible 
  
• Maintain transactional integrity 
  
• Ensure secure access 
  
• Develop application domain expertise at the code and data level 
  
• Provide support and guidance to the development teams during the analysis, design, development and testing processes. 
  
• Defines design patterns that ensure performance, scalability, operability and maintainability, and monitor their correct use. 
  
• Identify and communicate risks (business, application, technical) associated with component or application implementation 
  
• Prepare application architecture deliverables in accordance with enterprise standards and methodologies and consistent with the target business architecture 
• Proactively identify and capitalize upon opportunities to share / reuse existing components 
  
• Ensure steady and proactive evolution of domain components in alignment with enterprise standards through development of SOA and Integration roadmaps and contributions to project architectures and designs 
• Establish strong working relationships with other Application and Technical architects 
  
• Establish strong working relationships with the business, operations and other technology team members 
  
• Participate in and support cross technology process improvement initiatives 
  
• Be recognized as an authority in the functional and technical aspects of the application domain 
  
• Manage your workload and deliver to agreed upon project milestones 
  
• Mentor designers and developers on patterns, tools, standards and best practices. 
  

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's in Computer Science or related field 
  
• Application Architect: 5 to 7 years relevant work experience 
  
• Understanding of multiple programming languages, systems and systems’ design methodologies 
  
• Knowledge of the overall technology and business operating models and underlying technical architecture 
  
• Knowledge of project management methodologies and tools 
  
• Knowledge of and experience with the design and implementation of architecture methodologies, best practices, standards and tools 
• Understanding of relevant technologies and development life cycles 
  
• Strong written and verbal communication skills 
  

Relevant Technical Skills: 

• Software Engineering: Java, XML, SQL, .net, PhP 
  
• Content Management: Drupal 
  
• Integration Technologies: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Web Services, SOAP, REST 
  
• Planning & Design: Microsoft Project, Visio 
  
• Modeling / Reporting Tools : UML, Crystal Reports 
  
• Databases: Oracle, MSSQL, MariaDB 
  
• Standards & Methodology: Agile, Scrum, Waterfall