Enterprise Architect

Location: Portland, OR; or a remote location within the United States

Valid unrestricted work authorization in the country in which you will be based (United States) is required at the time of application for this position.

Position Status: Full-time, Exempt, Regular

Salary: US: Starting salary for this role will be $100,500 to $127,300 commensurate on experience.

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

Information Technology Summary

Information Technology (IT) at Mercy Corps coordinates, facilitates, and supports the agency’s use of technology to ensure Mercy Corps achieves its humanitarian objectives. Mercy Corps is working to be the leading INGO in applying technology to optimize the speed and efficiency of internal operations and the impact and effectiveness of our programs, and to ensure that decision making is facilitated leveraging data services. The IT team provides planning support and technical assistance to new and existing Mercy Corps country programs.

General Position Summary

In collaboration with the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Senior Director Information Technology and the Director of Data Services, the Enterprise Architect will provide leadership in streamlining, assessing, and optimizing the existing tools and resources, as well as recommending improvements. The Enterprise Architect will be responsible for managing and updating Mercy Corps software toolkit and systems, ensuring team members globally have access to the appropriate tools needed to deliver Mercy Corps’ high-quality, high-impact programming. This work will require regular review of existing systems and tools, as well as potential to acquire or sunset new tools as appropriate.

The Enterprise Architect will work closely with the Director of Global Data Protection, Privacy, and Ethical AI to ensure that any and all tools enable appropriate data security and safety practices. The Enterprise Architect will also work closely with the Director of Data Services, working together to develop a new Data Ops Platform for Mercy Corps that will help facilitate data management and consumption at enterprise scale. The Data Ops platform will seek to improve quality, speed, and collaboration and promote a culture of continuous improvement in the area of data analytics. The DataOps platform will be focused on using data science to improve the communication, integration and automation of data flows between data managers and data consumers across the organization. This work will augment the speed and quality of data production, storage, and reporting, and will support Mercy Corps’ Evidence Driven commitment in the agency strategy.

The Data Ops platform will be a key link in the connections between IT (specifically the Data Services team), and other teams that generate evidence and data, or that use it for learning and scaling. This platform will also be key for moving forward the agency’s Evidence Driven Commitment in the overall strategy, as it will ensure data is accessible for making data-driven decisions in a consistent and aligned way.

The Enterprise Architect will work with the Director of Data Services to create and enforce effective data management policies where needed and to formulate management techniques for quality data collection and transformation to ensure adequacy, accuracy, and legitimacy of data.

This position will require both hands on technical work as well as collaboration with various team members responsible for systems and data flows. In order to deliver these services this position will continue to develop an enterprise architecture practice at Mercy Corps as these responsibilities will cut across departments, countries, and regions requiring our team to define and streamline end-to-end business processes and data flows.

This position will require strong change management and communication skillsets to coordinate and manage the change management and communication activities around new and existing IT projects, changes in business systems and processes, or changes in technologies.

Further, the Enterprise Architect will continue leading the Okta (identity management) Implementation until the current HCM system is setup as the sole system of truth for all employee records as we retire the current legacy identity management system.

Essential Job Responsibilities

LEADERSHIP & CULTURE

• Provide leadership in developing a more impactful data culture at the agency.
• Co-Lead the Data Governance Working Group, and expand the membership to include all business units (in coordination with the Director of Data Services).
• Lead the effort to develop a high-quality data practice at Mercy Corps that successfully turns data into insight and leads to better decision making.
• Co-chair the Data Steering Committee.
• Work to continuously improve our Enterprise Architecture practice.
• Create and implement enterprise software development policies, SOPs, and best practices.

STRATEGY & VISION

• In collaboration with other IT and business leaders, develop and execute on Mercy Corps’ global data strategy and vision.
• Develop the technology roadmap to align Mercy Corps with it’s vision for modernizing our capabilities.
• In conjunction with other members of the IT leadership team, set standards and guidance for evaluation of new technologies, such as off the shelf software platforms, software development languages and infrastructure, and coding practices.
• Support the SharePoint (and overall M365) rollout project – ensure that the environment is designed and structured appropriately for overall Mercy Corps needs, and that Microsoft tools and project plans are incorporated into overall Enterprise Architecture strategy and vision.
• In coordination with the Director of Data Services, create a process to facilitate scaling successful data technology solutions from smaller implementation levels to Enterprise level solutions.
• Design and implement digital solutions that are scalable, flexible, and adaptable to accommodate growth, changes in Mercy Corps’ business processes, and evolving business needs.
• Identify opportunities to optimize costs while enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of Mercy Corps operations through digital transformation.
• Establish governance models and frameworks to ensure consistent management and oversight of digital transformation projects across all Mercy Corps countries and offices.
• Collaborate with change management team members to ensure seamless adoption of digital technologies and processes by global staff.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation of digital transformation strategies, architectures, roadmaps, and implementation plans.
• Analyze the current business and IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Lead and facilitate the creation of governing principles to guide solution decision making for the enterprise.
• Define organizational requirements for the resources, structures and cultural changes necessary to support our Enterprise Architecture.
• Promote the process, outcomes and results of this Enterprise Architecture work to the organization, including the enterprise’s IT and business leaders; this includes assessing (through appropriate metrics) and communicating the achievement and impact of this work, as well as leading the development and execution of a communication and education plan.

DATA SERVICES & ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE OPERATIONS

• Architect groups, folders and business automation rules for enterprise systems such as Okta, O365, and Jira.
• Create and manage the technical documentation describing how data flows through the agency and the controls that will be used to ensure their secure and reliable operation.
• In coordination with the Data Services Team, collaborate with business units to create reports and data visualizations that help enable data driven decision making.
• In coordination with the Data Services team, support the evaluation and implementation of new platform capabilities and enterprise data products related to Azure and the Microsoft Power Platform.
• In coordination with the Director of Data Services, implement rigorous data validation processes and protocols to ensure the accuracy, consistency, and integrity of Mercy Corps data, guaranteeing reliable and trustworthy data for analytical purposes.
• Evaluate and implement the necessary technical systems to drive data services and custom software development operations.
• Develop and manage the common data model for enterprise systems, and support the Director of Data Services in developing data strategy, architecture, and governance for the agency.
• Actively drive maturity of IT operating model.
• Drive collaboration with the Data Services team and Director of Data Services, to ensure that Enterprise Architecture strategy and roadmaps are reflective of Data Service team needs and overall agency needs.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

• Conduct impact analyses, assess change readiness, and identify key stakeholders to gauge organizational readiness for transitions.
• Identify change risks and support implementation of risk mitigation strategies.
• Ensure change management projects objectives are met and managed to established timelines and budgets.
• Plan and implement effective communication plans to support IT projects.
• Plan and implement comprehensive stakeholder engagement strategies.
• Analyze project risks and identify mitigations tactics to inform communications strategy.

Supervisory Responsibility:

The Enterprise Architect has supervisory responsibilities.

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Senior Director Information technology.

Works Directly With: IT, Finance, HR, Programs, RD and other business unit leaders.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or related area preferred.
• 8+ years of combined experience in IT or software development and technical leadership with experience in building or leading teams.
• 7+ years proven work experience as an Enterprise architect or similar role.
• 5+ years experience designing cloud based solutions in M365 (and connected to M365).
• Excellent management, leadership, collaboration, mentorship, communication, problem solving, conflict resolution, and senior stakeholder relationship management skills.
• Ability to conceive and portray the big picture.
• Foundation in systems development at an enterprise scale and experience working with global teams.
• Broad IT experience spanning the solutions, information, integration and technology domains; ability to function as an architect in one or more of these 4 domains, as well as perform the more strategic functions.
• Ability to formulate the best possible technical direction for Mercy Corps in an iterative fashion by keeping in context existing technologies and business systems, current project needs, future business requirements and emerging technology trends.
• Demonstrated experience designing and deploying enterprise-wide, complex cloud infrastructure solutions.
• Ability to work collaboratively with highly capable and technical team to drive decisions and implementation.
• Strong organizational change management and communications skills required.
• A background in software architecture and design.
• Prior experience in a multinational and/or non-profit environment is preferred.
• Ability to lead in agile software development practices and a bias towards action is preferred.

Success Factors

The successful candidate is a problem solver, who is adept in successfully dealing with issues of complexity. They are a skilled communicator, able to develop and utilize strong relationships with team members. They will coordinate with their team, their supervisor, and others across the agency and be effective at building working relationships with stakeholders. The Enterprise Architect will work with cross-agency stakeholders to ensure that Mercy Corps delivers on pieces of it’s strategy, to learn from experience, thoroughly research and analyze context and develop high impact strategies. They will lead with clear vision, and will communicate the strategy and goals effectively. They will be a skilled data curator with ability to analyze, write and synthesize diverse and complex information, helping teams generate new insights into their work and how program impact can be scaled. A sense of humor is greatly appreciated.