Solution Architect

Full Job Description

The Office of Secretary of State (OSOS) offers some of the most unique and diverse job opportunities in state government.

Its critical responsibilities include: ensuring a fair and accurate elections process; connecting Washingtonians through the power of libraries; protecting our important government records; and registering corporations and charities.

The Secretary of State also administers vital community programs that inspire giving, document our history, and assist crime survivors in avoiding further abuse.

This independent office under the state Constitution operates from facilities in the Olympia area and statewide.

The OSOS is looking for top-performing employees who embody its core values of integrity, service excellence, visionary leadership, collaboration and teamwork.

It is committed to both employee growth and work-life balance. The benefits of working in state government also include potential eligibility for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Visit our website at: www.sos.wa.gov.

The Office of the Secretary of State (OSOS) promotes public trust by supervising state and local elections, collecting and preserving historical records, registering corporations and charities, and administering the Washington State Libraries, the Address Confidentiality Program, the Combined Fund Drive, and the Productivity Board.

The Division of Information Technology (IT) ensures that all technology systems within OSOS business programs run smoothly, securely, and efficiently.

We are the strategic partner in driving business goals, improving operational efficiency, and safeguarding critical data and systems.

IT is deeply involved in ensuring the seamless flow of information, providing scalability and innovation, handling everything from hardware, software and tools to complex systems delivering valuable customer experience.

The position of Solution Architect is a critical strategic role for the information technology division and is responsible for designing and oversight of the creation of technology systems/solutions to solve business problems.

Acting as a bridge between business needs and technical teams by translating requirements into scalable blueprints for software, hardware, data and infrastructure elements.

Working with the Enterprise Architect, the Solution Architect will focus on building complex enterprise ecosystems and solving high-level strategic issues defined by the Enterprise Architect by developing well-built solutions to help teams develop products for business on time and within budget.

The Solution Architect will ensure new systems fit the existing enterprise environment by understanding the business model from processes, operating systems, and create both existing and new application architectures that best fit continuous improvement and agile business practices.

When existing technology is not accessible at OSOS, the incumbent in the position will define, develop those solutions using ingenuity and innovative means.

The Solution Architect will work with existing developed solutions to identify opportunities to revise and improve those solutions to best optimize or fine tune technology solutions through maintenance and support areas of operations.

They will deliver new technology solutions and offer various methods to problem solving with solution designs that meet security safeguards, industry best practices and when necessary, will define new solutions and approaches to meet business needs.

The position will serve in implementing solutions enterprise wide to deliver products and services for OSOS.

This position is located in Tumwater, WA, you must live within a reasonable commuting distance from this duty station.

Requirements

Solution Architecture

Tasks include:

• Maps out solution options meeting business objectives and functional/non-functional requirements.
• Identifies and documents the proposed information structure to meet usability and user centered design to support intuitive customer experience design qualities through site navigation and use.
• Ensures the IT solution complies with new and existing information security practices required to meet the business function and technology implementation of an approved solution.
• When using or considering system architecture to design new software, develops conceptual models, designs with process automation and document placement and behavior of each system software components and defines their integrations pathways for technical navigation and support.
• Uses enterprise-grade system architecture with reusable, standardized components that can be leveraged across multiple systems, ensuring scalability, security, availability, and compliance.
• Creates and maps all applications and their layers in how they interact with each other for both inputs/outputs and results.
• Analyzes cloud storage cost drivers and inefficiencies and proposes solutions that reduce total cloud spend while balancing performance and reliability.
• Details the structural designs within any IT infrastructure that is needed to support a proposed solution. Ensure that all components can work together and data can integrate seamlessly and keep high performance and integrity.
• Remains apprised on current and future strategic trends, architecture frameworks, guidelines, best practices, and industry compliance mechanisms to support the continuous change in technology, tools, and platforms.

Technology Solution(s) Repository Management

Tasks include:

• Designs, develops and documents a strategic technical vision of every product/solution to include any costing estimates for licensing and support, training and FTE transition from implementation to support.
• Creates a solution prototype to support the intended business drivers to verify solutions meet high-level requirements and understanding for solution delivery.
• Develops, documents, and informs on all products a compliance checklist validating the minimum non-functional requirements involving, security, performance, maintainability, scalability, usability, and reliability to align with all state and federal laws and compliance regulations.
• Analyzes tools and platforms and their documented requirements for implementation, integration and configurations to ensure proper knowledge transfer is in documented for the architected solution using multiple products to deliver a single solution or outcome.
• Evaluates technology tools and platforms to learn, train, and demonstrate their use within an architected solution.
• Contributes to onboarding technology products through the contract and procurement evaluation processes.
• Creates and maintains processes, procedures and environments to store and retain all technology solutions and their correlating documents to meet proper retention cycles within the portfolio management lifecycles.

Technical Leadership for existing OSOS in-house custom-built or 3rd party products/systems.

Tasks include:

• Develops and maintains a deep understanding of all technology solutions currently implemented for OSOS.
• Provides technical expertise and guidance on technology solutions for handling new features, resolving vulnerabilities or other safeguard changes, and identify areas of technology training to upskill teams in their performance over systems supported and maintained.
• Provides consistent architecture framework understanding and standards for development teams to follow.
• Ensures development team leads/supervisors have clarity on recommended solutions to resolving feature enhancements, maintenance or security improvements as required. Provide additional technical documentation and support solutions where needed.
• Mitigates technical deficiencies and provides oversight to teams to ensure solutions are adhered to and where changes are necessary provides modifications to solutions to resolve challenges during implementation of any solution.
• Ensures availability to junior developers for technical leadership and instruction to meet industry’s best practices and ensure technical skills meet the tasks assigned.

Solution Architect - Policy and Planning

Tasks include:

• Working collaboratively with peer Architects across domains and enterprise to lead the responsibility and oversight of governance for frameworks, systems design, standards, and guidelines to ensure technical solutions align with business strategy, security, and compliance requirements.
• Produce essential documentation such as architectural principles, patterns, and policy frameworks that support solution architecture in collaboration with technical domain architected spaces.
• Participates in the architecture review board to evaluate, approve, or reject proposed solutions based on compliance with established policies.
• Embeds security, compliance, and risk management into all solution designs.
• Produces and manages detailed architecture artifacts including reference architecture, design patterns, frameworks, and decision records.
• Provides guidance to engineering teams on the interpretation and application of architecture policies and standards.

Alternate Committee Member

Tasks include:

• Working collaboratively with peer Architects across domains and state enterprise to establish state level standards and guidelines involving architecture.
• Participate in the architecture review processes on the state level committee or its subcommittees.
• Adheres to the charter of the committee and subcommittee.
• Represents OSOS and the IT Division as committee or subcommittee members.
• Share reports, actions, and useful information back to the OSOS IT community as appropriate.

Miscellaneous

• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

Total of nine years of software development experience leading up to architecture-related development.

Applications development experience includes designing, developing and maintaining applications using industry standard tools and development languages.

Developing, designing, and maintaining databases using MS SQL or related relational database tools and software.

OR An associate’s degree in technology or related field with seven years of Information Technology experience.

OR A bachelor’s degree in technology or related field with five years of Information Technology experience.

OR A master’s degree in technology or related field with three years of Information Technology experience.

OR any combination of education and experience that is equal to 9 years. (Education is credited towards experience on a year for year basis)

At least four years must be at the senior level working on a complex or multi-functional computing system that impacts organization-wide; particularly in the development of large-scale applications, including independent problem solving and complex issue

At least one year of experience in a lead or supervisory role for any job industry.

*Information Technology Experience* is the progressive technical expertise of enterprise solution design and engineering in any of the following functional & technical IT domain areas:

• Software development & engineering (web, mobile, desktop, and embedded systems).
• Cybersecurity (network, asset, risk)
• Cloud computing & DevOps: (cloud architecture, management, and workflow automation)
• Data Science, AI & Analytics (big data, machine learning, data mining, and AI systems)
• Network administration (design and support)
• Quality Assurance (QA testing for failures, missed features and quality)
• Database Administration (managing and securing data stores, tuning & optimization)
• Emerging Tech

Preferred Qualifications:

• Industry Certifications (e.g., Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, TOGAF 9, other architect certifications)

PLEASE READ: If you have gotten this far and are thinking you do not qualify, consider again. Studies have shown that members of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities, specifically women and people of color, are less likely to apply to jobs unless they clearly meet every single qualification. At the Office of the Secretary of State, we are dedicated to building a diverse and authentic work force with a foundation of belonging. If you are excited about this role and have relevant experience and skills, but question whether your experience aligns perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply regardless. You may just be the ideal candidate this office needs.

Additional Information

Working Conditions
In this position, the incumbent works in a standard office environment with sitting and using a computer, notebook or files. Incumbent will be supplied with application equipment package for the IT Position and the incumbent will be expected to use various computer equipment / hardware, telephony, conference, and printers. To include various software applications, and peripheral devices to support daily duties and task or other duties as assigned. May perform work where lifting, kneeling, bending, or reaching is required. Able to move and maneuver objects weighing approximately 20 pounds with or without reasonable accommodation. The standard office hours Monday - Friday, time to be specified between the incumbent and the direct supervisor. This is a COOP position and will support work required outside of standard hours to include evenings, weekends, and holidays. This position is eligible for flex and telework schedules with supervisor approval. Travel to all OSOS facilities, other state, local, federal, county facilities may be travelled to on occasion as required to complete business needs and functions. All travel will be subject to and the incumbent will adhere to the Travel Policy and its procedures. This position will also attend summits, work related conferences, and trainings offsite of work location as required. The incumbent is expected to be a professional employee, willing and able to perform their duties through adverse experiences, working with diverse groups and individuals with self-awareness, grace, compassion, and sensitivity for those around them. Will handle conflict at the lowest levels before escalation. This position is eligible for flexible schedule options, but we require fulltime in-person during the probationary/trial service period. Once probationary/trial service period is complete this position may telework, but only fifty percent of the time. Schedules are based on position needs and are subject to change.

Special Requirements

• This position is in a bargaining unit represented by the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) and is subject to the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the State of Washington, The Office of the Secretary of State, and the WFSE.
  
• Prior to a new hire, a background check including criminal record history will be conducted. Information from the background check will not necessarily preclude employment but will be considered in determining the applicant’s suitability and competence to perform in the position.
• Must have current Washington state driver's license or have requested and obtained an appropriate accommodation.

Apply

• Required: To be considered for this position you must attach the following:
  • Letter of interest describing how your experience and qualifications relate to the duties and qualifications of the position.
  • Current resume
  • Three Professional references. Personal references will not be considered.
• You must complete the supplemental questions at the end of this application. Incomplete responses such as "see resume" will not be considered.
• All veterans must include a copy of your DD214 to receive preference in the hiring process. You must black out your social security number before attaching it to your application.

The Office of the Secretary of State is an equal opportunity employer (EOE).

We do not discriminate on the basis of religion, age, gender, marital status, color, creed, national origin, political affiliation, military status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any sensory, mental or physical ability.

All interested candidates are encouraged to apply.

Persons of disability needing assistance in the application process, or those needing the announcement in alternative format, should call (360) 704-5211.