IT Architect

With competitive pay, great benefits, and endless opportunities, working for the City and County of Denver means seeing yourself working with purpose — for you, and those who benefit from your passion, skills and expertise. Join our diverse, inclusive and talented workforce of more than 13,000 team members who are at the heart of what makes Denver, Denver.

We value diversity of ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, sexual identity, gender, religion, language, ability, and experience and exemplify this through the makeup of our team at all levels. You'll be right at home here if you cultivate strong relationships and push yourself, your work, the people around you and Denver to the next level.

The Technology Services Department (TS) of the City and County of Denver use state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies to deliver and improve the systems, applications, and operations to our customers. Technology Services supports the people, agencies, and ideas that make the City and County of Denver a world-class city. The city offers a unique opportunity to work with a diverse business and technology environment on a large scale as we employ more than 13,000 people, of which 9,000+ are daily technology consumers in support of a diverse population over 700,000 Denverites.

The City and County of Denver offers a competitive salary commensurate with education and experience. The hiring range for this position is $115,000.00 - $130,000.00/year, based on experience and education. We also offer generous benefits for full-time employees which include but are not limited to:

• A guaranteed life-long monthly pension, once vested after 5 years of service
• 457B Retirement Plan
• 140 hours of PTO earned within first year + 12 paid holidays, 1 personal holiday, 1 Wellness Day and 1 volunteer day per year
• Competitive medical, dental and vision plans effective within 1 month of start date

The Enterprise Architecture team sets the technical direction that guides how Technology Services delivers and evolves its systems. We focus on emerging technology strategy, infrastructure and application right-sizing, and the monitoring and observability strategy that keeps our environment healthy and transparent. We drive process improvement in support of the service delivery model, ensuring that architecture decisions align investments with business value, reduce risk, and strengthen the reliability, scalability, and sustainability of the technology that serves the City and County of Denver.

The Technology Services Department is seeking an IT Architect to help shape and advance the City’s enterprise technology strategy. Reporting directly to the Enterprise Architect within Technology Services, you will be a strategic, forward-thinking technologist who translates business direction into sound, scalable architecture across infrastructure, applications, and platforms.

In this role, you will define and promote target-state architectures, guide emerging technology strategy, and lead infrastructure and application right-sizing efforts that align capacity and cost with business need. You will help establish and mature the City’s monitoring and observability strategy so that services are reliable, measurable, and transparent.

You will drive process improvement in support of the service delivery model, working across Technology Services teams, business partners, and vendors to ensure architecture standards, reference patterns, and technology roadmaps are understood, adopted, and consistently applied.

This role engages closely with TS leadership—and at times with city leaders—to communicate architectural direction, present options and trade-offs, and build alignment on strategic technology decisions and investments.

You will develop architecture artifacts, standards, and roadmaps; evaluate emerging and existing technologies; and provide guidance and governance through mechanisms such as architecture and change reviews, helping teams adopt modern, sustainable, and well-governed solutions.

This role requires strong analytical and design skills, excellent communication, comfort working in both independent and collaborative environments, and a passion for solving complex problems through thoughtful, enterprise-grade technology architecture.

• Define, document, and promote enterprise and solution architectures aligned to TS’s technology strategy
• Guide emerging technology strategy and evaluate new platforms, tools, and approaches
• Lead infrastructure and application right-sizing to align capacity, performance, and cost with business need
• Shape and mature the City’s monitoring and observability strategy for reliable, measurable services and system process Develop reference architectures, standards, patterns, and technology roadmaps
• Partner with TS teams, business stakeholders, and vendors to drive adoption of architecture standards
• Drive process improvement in support of the service delivery model
• Provide architectural guidance and governance, including participation in architecture and change reviews
• Engage with TS leadership—and at times city leaders—to present options, trade-offs, and recommendations
• Contribute to continuous improvement of architecture practices, standards, and documentation
• Collaborate with the Enterprise Architect and support direction from TS leadership
• Coordinate and monitor system upgrade and remediation efforts

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct architecture assessments, current-state analysis, and target-state design
• Identify integration, infrastructure, and platform needs and recommend solutions
• Create clear architecture artifacts, technical standards, and design specifications
• Advise stakeholders on architecture best practices (security, scalability, integration, resilience)
• Serve as the bridge between business strategy and technical implementation
• Define infrastructure and application right-sizing recommendations based on documented requirements
• Maintain and prioritize the architecture roadmap and technology backlog
• Support proof-of-concept, evaluation, and validation of proposed solutions
• Participate in Architecture Review and Change Advisory Board (CAB) reviews for production changes
• Continuously improve architecture tools, processes, and documentation
• Perform other duties as assigned

• 3+ years in an IT architecture, solution architecture, or enterprise architecture role
• 3+ years designing infrastructure, applications, and integrations in a complex environment
• 5+ years of progressive IT experience in a complex, highly integrated environment
• Experience serving as a technical lead or advisor between business and technical teams
• Experience developing reference architectures, standards, patterns, and technology roadmaps
• Experience with infrastructure and application right-sizing (capacity, performance, and cost)
• Knowledge of monitoring and observability strategy, tooling, and practices
• Strong problem-solving skills for enterprise-scale systems and platforms
• Understanding of government systems (city/county/state) is helpful
• Excellent communication skills, including with senior and executive leadership
• Comfortable working independently and collaboratively
• Ability to align technology decisions with the service delivery model and business value
• Tools & applications experience:
  • Microsoft Office Suite, Visio (or comparable architecture/modeling tools)
  • Azure DevOps (ADO) / Team Foundation Server (TFS) / JIRA-like tools
  • ServiceNow
  • SQL and general data/integration concepts
  • Experience with APIs, integrations, and integration patterns
  • Knowledge of architecture frameworks and modeling (e.g., TOGAF, BPMN, C4)
  • Experience educating and advising stakeholders on best practices
  • Strong documentation and diagramming skills
  • Ability to communicate technical solutions to non-technical stakeholders
  • Experience with monitoring/observability platforms and cloud (e.g., AWS) architecture
  • Experience with ITIL change management and IT service delivery processes

Helpful but Not Required

• Architecture experience in municipal, county, or state government
• Experience with AWS or other cloud architecture and migrations
• Experience with IT infrastructure (SQL Server, Linux, MS Server OS)
• Architecture certifications (e.g., TOGAF) and/or ITIL or Agile certifications
• ITIL or Agile certifications

• Education Requirement: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration, Mathematics or a related field.
• Experience Requirement: Two (2) years of professional level information technology experience performing systems analysis, planning strategic and operational objectives, conducting business analysis, and overseeing enterprise systems architecture with regard to infrastructure, data, cyber security, and applications.
• Education and Experience Equivalency: One (1) year of the appropriate type and level of experience may be substituted for each required year of post-high school education.
• Additional appropriate education may be substituted for the minimum experience requirements.
• License/Certification Requirement: By position, requires a valid driver's license at the time of application.
• Must obtain Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) clearance within the probationary period.
• Licenses and certifications must be kept current as a condition of employment.

This posting is expected to stay open until September 13th. Please submit your application as soon as possible and no later than September 13th at 11:59 p.m. MST.

Job Profile

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The City and County of Denver provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, age, or any other status protected under federal, state, and/or local law. 

It is your right to access oral or written language assistance, sign language interpretation, real-time captioning via CART, or disability-related accommodations. To request any of these services at no cost to you, please contact [email protected] with three business days’ notice.

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