Principal Director of Enterprise Architecture (Remote from anywhere in CO)

Full Job Description

Together, we innovate for a stronger Colorado

The work of employees at the Governor's Office of Information Technology (OIT) is challenging and diverse because the needs of agencies, customers and Coloradans constantly evolve.

But our focus never changes: improve the lives of all Coloradans through innovation and collaboration.

We're building one of the nation's leading government IT organizations by reimagining how we support agencies, building first-of-their-kind applications, and creating an inclusive, collaborative culture, together.

Join us in the important work of providing equitable access to services.

Watch this video to learn more about how we're Serving People. Serving Colorado.

Requirements

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please review your application to ensure completion.

For the most equitable applicant experience, OIT’s hiring team considers only the contents of the Work Experience section of your application to review for minimum qualifications.

Though we do ask that a resume and cover letter are included in your application, please refrain from entering "See Resume" in the Work History section as valuable experience may be missed during the application review process.

Summary

Colorado is redesigning state government technology and we need a bold technical leader to help build it.

This newly created Principal Director of Enterprise Architecture role sits at the center of a significant organizational transformation, with the authority and opportunity to set technical direction, shape emerging technology policy, and build a governance culture that enables modern digital delivery for Coloradans.

We’re not looking for a traditional government IT hire. This leader will bring clarity and direction while aligning teams to achieve measurable goals.

We want someone with deep technical excellence, a founder’s mindset, and the drive to co-create something truly transformational.

If you’re energized by navigating uncharted terrain, excited by impact at scale, and ready to help define what 21st-century state government technology looks like, then we want to hear from you.

About This Opportunity

Colorado is embarking on a new phase to define what state government technology can be. And we’re looking for a bold, technically excellent leader to help us build it.

This is not a typical government IT role.

The State of Colorado’s central technology organization is in the middle of a significant transformation: replacing legacy processes and siloed platforms with a modern, integrated approach to technology delivery that puts Coloradans first.

We are rethinking how the state makes technology decisions, governs investments, sets standards, and delivers digital services.

And we’re doing it in a way that draws on the best practices from the private sector, civic technology, and modern engineering culture.

The Principal Director of Enterprise Architecture is a newly created role at the center of that transformation.

You will help define enterprise architecture for a 21st-century state government, not inherit a legacy function and maintain it.

You’ll set technical direction across the state’s entire technology portfolio, shape how the state evaluates and adopts emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, and build a governance culture that enables great work rather than obstructing it.

You will work alongside talented, mission-driven colleagues who care deeply about the impact of this work on the people who live, work, and play in Colorado.

We are looking for someone who is at home with ambiguity, energized by the chance to build something new, and ready to bring fresh thinking to one of the most complex and consequential technology environments in the state.

You don’t need a background in government IT.

In fact, we’re actively looking for leaders who come from any sector and are excited to learn the nuances of Colorado state government while bringing modern technical depth and a genuine passion for public service.

If you’ve ever wanted to do work that matters at scale, technology decisions that affect millions of people, infrastructure that underpins essential public services, standards that shape how an entire state operates, then this is that opportunity.

Candidates from regulated industries, large enterprise environments, consulting, or other sectors are strongly encouraged to apply.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Knowledge

Enterprise Architecture & Technical Strategy

The ideal candidate has deep knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman, or similar) and their practical application across business, application, data, infrastructure, and integration domains.

They understand how to develop and govern technology standards that balance innovation with stability, and how to translate strategic organizational goals into actionable technical direction.

They have broad knowledge of the technology landscape, cloud platforms, integration patterns, data architecture, identity and access management, and modern software delivery sufficient to evaluate solutions across domains rather than within a single technology stack.

Technology Investment & Portfolio Management

The candidate understands the principles of technology portfolio management, including how to evaluate investments for strategic value, assess total cost of ownership, and make evidence-based build-versus-buy recommendations.

They have knowledge of business case development and can evaluate vendor proposals for both technical soundness and strategic fit.

Policy, Governance & Compliance

The candidate has knowledge of technology policy development, standards enforcement, and exception management processes.

They understand accessibility requirements (Section 508 / WCAG), relevant state and federal technology regulations, and how governance frameworks can enable delivery rather than impede it.

Emerging Technology & Artificial Intelligence (Preferred)

The candidate actively tracks developments in emerging technology, particularly artificial intelligence, automation, and machine learning, and understands how these tools can be applied practically in resource-constrained, risk-aware environments.

They can separate genuine opportunity from hype and sufficiently understand the governance, ethical, and security implications of AI adoption in public sector contexts to help develop policy that is neither recklessly permissive nor reflexively restrictive.

Public Sector Technology Context (Preferred)

Familiarity with the constraints and opportunities of government IT, procurement rules, legislative authority, agency autonomy, and cross-agency interoperability is helpful but not required.

More important is a willingness to learn these constraints quickly and work creatively within them without defaulting to “that’s how government IT works” as a reason to avoid change.

Candidates who have navigated complex, federated, or highly regulated environments in other sectors are strongly encouraged to apply.

FinOps & Cloud Economics

Understanding of consumption-based funding models and the ability to implement architectural standards that optimize cloud spend and prevent "vendor lock-in."

Vendor Performance Management

Knowledge of how to partner with Procurement to bake technical KPIs and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) into large-scale state contracts.

Skills

Technical Evaluation & Solution Assessment

The candidate can objectively evaluate technology solutions, either vendor or custom-built, based on architectural merit, integration complexity, security posture, scalability, and alignment with standards to inform enterprise risk and resiliency.

They can identify technical risks in proposed solutions that non-technical reviewers would miss, and articulate those risks clearly to both technical and executive audiences.

They can use these skills to develop a repeatable and ideally automated methodology to deliver recommendations and risks to the business decision owners.

Standards Development & Architecture Governance

The candidate can develop technology policy and standards that are meaningful, enforceable, and practical.

They can guide and maintain the inventory of documentation necessary to support a holistic governance program.

They can build and run architecture review processes that provide real governance value, not just bureaucratic checkpoints, and can distinguish between exceptions that are genuinely warranted and those that reflect avoidance of the standard.

Cross-Domain Integration Design

The candidate can design integration patterns and data exchange standards that enable systems across agencies to work together without requiring centralized control of every component.

They understand API design, event-driven architecture, data interoperability standards, and identity federation at a level sufficient to set direction and review implementation.

Communication & Technical Translation

The candidate can communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical executives, legislators, and agency leaders.

They can also engage credibly with engineers and vendors at a deep technical level. This ability to move fluidly between audiences is essential.

The role requires both strategic influence and technical credibility.

Build-versus-Buy Decision Facilitation

The candidate can structure and facilitate build-versus-buy analyses that draw on product requirements, strategic considerations, vendor landscape knowledge, and total cost of ownership, producing recommendations that product managers and executives can act on with confidence.

Preference for an individual skilled in complex strategic vendor and contract negotiation to enable long-term technical and commercial value from major technology partners.

Operationalizing Governance

Skill in establishing and chairing a State-wide Architecture Review Board (ARB) that provides binding technical direction while maintaining velocity for delivery teams.

Lifecycle Management & Tech Debt

Proven skill in creating "sunset" strategies for legacy systems and managing the lifecycle of enterprise platforms to reduce technical debt and operational risk.

Agile Architecture

Experience integrating architectural guardrails into modern DevOps and Agile workflows, ensuring "Security and Architecture by Design" rather than as an afterthought.

Abilities

Strategic Technical Vision

The candidate can look across a large, heterogeneous technology portfolio and identify patterns, redundancies, gaps, and opportunities that individual platform teams or agencies cannot see from their position.

They can develop a multi-year technical direction that is ambitious enough to matter and grounded enough to execute.

Authority and Influence

Because enterprise architecture in a central IT organization operates through influence, standards, and governance rather than direct control of delivery teams, the candidate must be able to establish credibility and authority through the quality of their thinking and the usefulness of their guidance, not through hierarchy alone.

They can earn the trust of agency technology leaders, platform teams, and delivery pods alike.

Objective Evaluation Across Vendors and Technologies

The candidate can evaluate vendors and solutions without bias toward what is already in use or what is most familiar. They can hold vendors accountable to technical commitments, assess whether delivered quality meets stated standards, and recommend course corrections when it does not.

Comfort with Ambiguity and Organizational Transformation

This role is being created as part of a significant organizational transformation.

The boundaries, responsibilities, and processes of enterprise architecture at this organization will evolve considerably over the next several years.

The right candidate is energized rather than unsettled by this reality.

They can help co-create the function, building structure and process where none exists, adjusting course as the organization learns, and contributing to decisions that don’t yet have clear answers.

They bring a founder’s mindset to a government context: comfortable with change, skilled at operating in ambiguity, and committed to continuous improvement over rigid adherence to a plan that may no longer fit.

Institutional Leadership

The candidate can build and lead an enterprise architecture practice, recruiting technical talent from inside and outside the organization, establishing team norms, developing internal processes, and creating a culture of technical excellence in an environment where that culture has not previously existed.

They can do this while managing the day-to-day demands of a governance role.

Inclusive Leadership
Actively engage in improving leadership skills, attitudes, and knowledge, especially as related to equity, diversity and inclusion. Attend training, development and group training on topics of inclusive leadership.

Navigating Political and Organizational Complexity

State government technology decisions involve agency autonomy, legislative oversight, vendor relationships, and competing priorities.

The candidate can navigate this complexity without compromising technical integrity.

Thus finding paths forward that respect organizational constraints while maintaining the standards and direction that make enterprise architecture meaningful.

Talent Development and Mentorship

The candidate should have the ability to mentor, coach, and develop the next generation of technical architects and internal talent.

Direct People Leadership

Ability to manage, inspire, and hold accountable a high-performing team of domain architects; experience in workforce planning, professional development, and navigating formal performance management systems.

Organizational Design

Ability to design and scale a technical governance department, including defining roles, responsibilities, and workflows that integrate with existing agency structures.

Resource & Budget Management

Ability to manage a departmental budget, prioritize competing resource requests, and align technical headcount with the State’s strategic roadmap.

Qualifications

A wide salary range is posted for this position and any job offer is based upon a salary analysis to comply with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. The salary analysis considers relevant experience, education, certifications, and state seniority as compared to others doing substantially similar work. While most salary offers are made within the posted range, occasionally an offer is made below or above the posted range based upon this salary analysis.

This is a skills-based job announcement. The required minimum qualifications and/or education (if substituting for the proven experience, knowledge, and skills), are as follows:

Minimum Qualifications:

Additional appropriate education will substitute for the required experience on a year-for-year basis, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications. There is no substitution for any required management experience.

Training or Certification related to the work assigned to the position will be assigned credit towards substitution for experience and/or education, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications.

If the minimum qualifications include a degree requirement, additional appropriate paid or unpaid experience will substitute for the required education on a year-for-year basis.

Preferred Qualifications:

Conditions of Employment:

OIT candidates and employees must comply with any screening procedures in place at state entity locations where they might be required to perform work.

A pre-employment background check will be conducted as part of the selection process.

Positions supporting some agencies such as the Department of Corrections and the Department of Public Safety will also require a pre-employment drug test.

This position may require travel within the specified geographic area, and to locations across the state as needed.

This position may require on-call duties as needed by the position.

Additional Information

If this posting indicates “remote from anywhere in CO” in the title, periodic reporting to the primary state work location designated for the position is required. All remote work must be performed in Colorado.

While candidates from out of state will be considered for this role, the candidate selected for the position must relocate and reside in Colorado on the first day of their new position. A reasonable timeframe for relocation will be established on an individual basis, while considering business needs, and determining a start date.

We know it's important to support each other, and that means having a healthy balance of work and personal time. Visit our benefits to learn more about some of our great offerings that allow us all to have fulfilling lives.

Visit our How to Apply webpage to learn more about our application process and what to expect after you apply.

The State of Colorado strives to create a Colorado for All by building and maintaining workplaces that value and respect all Coloradans through a commitment to equal opportunity and hiring based on merit and fitness. The State is resolute in non-discriminatory practices in everything we do, including hiring, employment, and advancement opportunities.

The Governor's Office of Information Technology is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals.

As part of this commitment, our agency will assist individuals who have a disability with any reasonable accommodation requests related to employment, including completing the application process, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, participating in the employee selection process, and/or to perform essential job functions where the requested accommodation does not impose an undue hardship.

If you have a disability and require reasonable accommodation to ensure you have a positive experience applying or interviewing for this position, please direct your inquiries to our ADA Coordinator at OIT_HR@state.co.us or call (303) 764-7900.

This posting may be used to fill multiple vacancies based upon business need.

The Governor's Office of Information Technology does NOT offer sponsored Visas for employment purposes.