Enterprise Architect Jobs in Michigan

The Enterprise and Business Architect provides institution-wide strategic leadership at the intersection of university priorities, business capabilities, operating processes, data, and technology. The position partners with executive leaders, academic and administrative units, and Office of Information Technology (OIT) leadership to translate institutional strategy into coherent capabilities, roadmaps, governance, and investment decisions. The architect establishes and matures the university’s enterprise and business architecture practice. This includes developing decision principles, capability and process models, current- and future-state architectures, standards, roadmaps, and governance mechanisms that improve integration, reduce unnecessary complexity, manage risk, and support sustainable innovation across teaching and learning, research, student services, and administrative operations. The position requires substantial technical breadth and credibility. Its primary value, however, is not expertise in any single platform or product; it is the ability to connect institutional outcomes to business design and technology choices, make tradeoffs visible, and guide leaders toward decisions that are strategic, evidence-based, financially responsible, secure, and executable. The Enterprise and Business Architect operates across institutional, business, data, application, integration, infrastructure, security, and service-management concerns while maintaining an enterprise-wide perspective. The position leads through influence rather than direct authority, creating alignment among executives, business owners, technology leaders, architects, analysts, project teams, and governance bodies. The architect balances strategic direction with pragmatic delivery by distinguishing target-state intent from near-term constraints and defining achievable transition paths. The role provides objective recommendations that consider mission impact, value, total cost, risk, organizational readiness, sustainability, and opportunity cost, and communicates complex technical and organizational issues in language that enables timely, transparent, and accountable decisions.

Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, engineering, information systems, business, organizational design, or a related field.
Ten years of progressively responsible experience in technology, enterprise architecture, business architecture, systems design, technology strategy, business transformation, or a closely related discipline, including experience leading work across multiple organizational or technical domains.
Demonstrated technical depth and breadth sufficient to evaluate complex enterprise environments, challenge assumptions, identify dependencies, and earn credibility with senior technologists and technical teams.
Demonstrated experience connecting organizational strategy and business needs to capability models, process design, architecture direction, roadmaps, governance, or investment decisions.
Experience facilitating complex decisions among stakeholders with competing priorities and communicating recommendations to both executive and technical audiences.
Experience evaluating technology investments using business value, total cost, risk, lifecycle, organizational readiness, and architectural fit.
A combination of education and relevant experience that provides the required knowledge and abilities may be considered in place of the stated degree or experience requirements.

Advanced degree in a relevant technology, business, computer science, engineering, information systems, public administration, organizational leadership, or related field.
Experience in higher education.
Experience in research, government, healthcare, or another complex, highly distributed, or shared-governance organization.
Experience establishing or maturing an enterprise architecture, business architecture, governance, portfolio, or strategic planning practice.
Experience supporting large-scale transformation, enterprise-system modernization, business-process redesign, service rationalization, or technology portfolio optimization.
Certification or professional development in enterprise architecture, business architecture, process improvement, change management, portfolio management, or a related discipline such as The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), Zachman Franework, Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) or equivalent.

Enterprise Strategy and Planning:
Translate university strategy, academic and research priorities, and administrative needs into enterprise capability priorities, architecture direction, and multi-year roadmaps.
Maintain a clear view of the university’s current state, target state, and transition states, including dependencies, constraints, risks, and sequencing considerations.
Develop and maintain enterprise architecture principles, reference models, roadmaps, and planning artifacts that guide consistent decision making across OIT and the institution.
Identify emerging opportunities, structural risks, duplication, and technical debt; recommend deliberate responses aligned with institutional capacity and mission value.
Contribute to OIT and university strategic planning, performance measurement, service planning, and other Office of the CIO (OCIO) capabilities as assigned by the Deputy CIO.
Business Architecture and Process Modernization:
Develop business capability maps, value streams, stakeholder and information flows, and current- and future-state process models that reveal how the university creates value and where change is needed.
Partner with process owners and cross-functional teams to clarify outcomes, simplify work, reduce fragmentation, define accountability, and improve the student, faculty, staff, and researcher experience.
Distinguish business requirements from inherited practices and product-specific assumptions; challenge unnecessary customization and encourage adoption of sustainable, university-wide practices.
Connect process redesign to policy, roles, data, controls, services, and technology so that modernization efforts address the full operating model rather than automate inefficient processes.
Support organizational change by clarifying the rationale, impact, dependencies, decision rights, and measures of success associated with proposed future states.
Architecture Governance and Decision Support:
Design and facilitate governance that establishes clear decision rights, review thresholds, escalation paths, exception processes, and accountability for enterprise decisions.
Lead or support architecture reviews for major initiatives, acquisitions, integrations, and changes, ensuring that recommendations are documented, traceable, and aligned with university principles and roadmaps.
Frame decisions for executives and governance bodies by presenting viable options, tradeoffs, consequences, dependencies, costs, risks, and recommended actions.
Maintain an accessible record of architecture decisions, standards, approved exceptions, assumptions, and sunset commitments; monitor follow-through and revisit decisions when conditions change.
Strengthen coordination among enterprise governance, data governance, information security, accessibility, portfolio management, procurement, and operational service governance.
Technology Investment and Portfolio Stewardship:
Evaluate proposed technology investments for strategic alignment, business value, architectural fit, lifecycle sustainability, implementation readiness, and impact on the broader portfolio.
Support business cases and investment recommendations using total cost of ownership, expected benefits, risk exposure, capacity requirements, opportunity cost, and measurable outcomes.
Partner with portfolio, finance, procurement, security, legal, and business stakeholders to improve intake, prioritization, sequencing, sourcing, and lifecycle decisions.
Identify opportunities to rationalize redundant capabilities and services, retire obsolete solutions, reduce technical debt, and redirect resources toward higher-value institutional needs.
Help define benefit measures and review whether major investments are delivering the intended institutional outcomes after implementation.
Enterprise Technology Architecture and Standards:
Provide technically credible guidance across application, data, integration, identity, infrastructure, cloud, security, resilience, and service domains without centering the role on a particular vendor or product.
Establish and maintain technology principles, reference architectures, interoperability expectations, lifecycle standards, and reusable patterns that enable secure and sustainable delivery.
Assess solution architectures and technical designs for fit with enterprise direction, data practices, security and privacy obligations, accessibility, resiliency, supportability, and operational capacity.
Collaborate with domain architects, engineers, analysts, and service owners to resolve cross-domain issues, define transition architectures, and guide implementation without displacing delivery-team accountability.
Use prototypes, technical analysis, and market research when necessary to validate assumptions and improve decisions; the position is not expected to serve as the primary engineer for production systems.
Lead the development of initial high-level solution concepts and architectures, defining the business outcomes, scope, key capabilities, major dependencies, integration considerations, risks, and decision points needed to guide investment and delivery planning.
Institutional Partnership and Organizational Enablement:
Build trusted relationships with academic, research, student-service, administrative, and technology leaders in a complex shared-governance environment.
Facilitate workshops, discovery sessions, planning discussions, and executive briefings that help diverse groups develop shared understanding and reach durable decisions.
Create clear architecture communications, knowledge resources, and reusable methods that improve architectural thinking and decision quality across the institution.
Mentor project teams, analysts, technical leaders, and business partners in systems thinking, business architecture, decision analysis, and roadmap development.
At the direction of the Deputy CIO, assist with related Office of the CIO capabilities, which may include IT strategy, portfolio and project governance, financial stewardship, performance measurement, organizational change, strategic supplier management, workforce planning, communications, knowledge management, and institutional events.
Other duties as assigned.

Supervisors are expected to support the Leadership Standards of Central Michigan University and foster a culture that inspires excellence. The Leadership Standards define how we lead and treat others on our team. As leaders, it is our responsibility to seek input from our teams to continuously improve our leadership abilities and our demonstration of the standards. Additionally, it is our responsibility to encourage and support the growth and development of those whom we lead. At CMU, we encourage employees to grow both personally and professionally, and thus advance CMU’s culture of excellence.

Central Michigan University is dedicated to fostering an environment that is reflective of the communities we serve. We are especially interested in highly qualified candidates who will advance and promote CMU’s mission, vision, and leadership standards.

You must submit an on-line application in order to be considered as an applicant for this position.

Cover letters may be addressed to the Hiring Committee.

Professional & Administrative -Salary

$135,000 - $180,000

President

Office of Information Technology

Regular

Full-Time

1.00

12 month

Mon-Fri, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. / weekends and evenings as required.

Mount Pleasant, MI

Central Michigan University has a more than 125-year legacy of preparing students to become leaders and changemakers in their communities and in their personal and professional lives.

We serve nearly 15,500 students on our Mount Pleasant campus, in satellite locations around the state and throughout the country, and through flexible online programs. Many of our approximately 300 undergraduate, master’s, specialist and doctoral programs in the arts, media, business, education, human services, health professions, liberal arts, social sciences, medicine, science and engineering are nationally ranked for excellence.

CMU leads the nation in leadership development programming through our Sarah R. Opperman Leadership Institute, and we are proud to be among only 5% of U.S. universities in the top two Carnegie research classifications. Our faculty work with graduate and undergraduate students in areas such as Great Lakes research, medical innovation, engineering technology and more.

Central is home to 17 men’s and women’s Division 1 sports including football, basketball, gymnastics, baseball, wrestling and more. Our student-athletes achieve great success in competition and in the classroom, capturing Mid-American Conference championships and maintaining an average cumulative GPA of 3.17.

CMU is located in Mount Pleasant, a community that blends the best of small-town living with big-city amenities. It’s part of the culturally varied and vibrant Great Lakes Bay Region that also includes Saginaw, Bay City, Midland and the state’s largest Native American community, centered on the Saginaw Chippewa Isabella Reservation in Mount Pleasant.

Area residents enjoy the mix of outdoor activities, cultural events, shopping and dining options, and family attractions. Other major Michigan destinations and attractions — Lansing, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Traverse City, wineries, beaches, golf and ski resorts, and many more — are within easy reach of the city’s central location in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

CMU employees enjoy access to a nationally recognized wellness program along with health care and benefits that exceed regional, state and national norms.

Central Michigan University is a place where we value students and work for their success, where we act as family, and where employees are engaged, appreciated and have extraordinary opportunities to make a difference.

We intentionally maintain and strengthen the hallmark CMU culture that sets us apart from our peers by expecting CMU leaders and employees to model the following Leadership Standards and develop them within their teams.

Please review the Leadership Standards before applying for this position.