Prin Enterprise Architect (Cloud)

Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.8 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties. Consumers Energy knows job number one is to keep the lights on for customers. We are committed to delivering reliable, clean, and affordable energy to our customers 24/7. 

This position is not eligible for immigration sponsorship, e.g., H-1B, TN, etc. Please do not apply if you will need immigration sponsorship for a work visa now or in the future, including sponsorship for H-1B, TN, etc., now or in the future. We are unable to hire individuals with CPT, OPT, or STEM OPT for this position as the position is not eligible for participation in the H-1B lottery program and is not eligible for current or future immigration sponsorship for a work visa.

Location: This is a hybrid (virtual/onsite) position with required onsite days on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday assigned to One Energy Plaza located in Jackson, MI. The selected candidate must be within a commutable distance or willing to relocate (relocation package is available for those that qualify). 

General Summary of Job Responsibilities

The Principal Enterprise Architect develops enterprise-level strategic business and technology solutions and collaborates with technical specialists to design and define strategic solutions. This role requires in-depth knowledge of business applications, application development methodologies, database principles and techniques, and hardware and software operating systems.

The Principal Enterprise Architect collaborates across the enterprise and at all organizational levels to align long-term technology and application strategies with the organization’s long-term business objectives. This role demonstrates a strong understanding of governance expectations and partners with business and technology stakeholders to achieve desired business outcomes. The Principal Enterprise Architect applies a strategic, long-term vision to strengthen the alignment between business and technology while helping shape future business direction.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Research, develop, document, and analyze enterprise, operational, and system architectures.

• Prepare and publish formal architecture documents; develop architecture plans and reports; and present recommendations and proposed actions to stakeholders through materials such as white papers and briefings.

• Partner with business leaders to define and enable future-state business capabilities that support the organization’s targeted business outcomes and inform strategic investment decisions.

• Assess disruptive forces affecting the organization and identify technology-enabled innovation opportunities that support business strategy. Evaluate technology trends within the context of social, economic, political, and other nontechnology trends. Analyze the relationships among the enterprise’s people, processes, information, technologies, and assets, as well as their relationship to the external environment.

• Respond to disruptive forces by facilitating strategic decision-making and providing business leaders with actionable recommendations regarding initiatives and policies that support targeted business outcomes.

• Research, develop, document, and analyze enterprise architectures, including business architecture, enterprise information environments, intelligence processes, and information technology, to identify mission capability gaps, overlaps, and shortfalls.

• Lead the development of enterprise architecture implementation plans based on business strategies, priorities, and requirements.

• Provide consultative guidance to business leaders and organizational stakeholders by delivering actionable recommendations that support investment decisions regarding future business and operating models and the technologies required to enable organizational transformation.

• Define and govern cloud architecture strategies, principles, standards, and reference architectures across public, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments, ensuring solutions meet requirements for security, resiliency, scalability, interoperability, performance, and cost optimization.

• Provide architectural leadership for cloud adoption and application modernization, including workload placement, cloud-native design, containers, serverless computing, APIs, integration patterns, data platforms, and the migration of legacy capabilities to modern cloud services.

• Partner with security, infrastructure, application, data, and engineering teams to establish cloud governance standards and architecture guardrails, including identity and access management, network architecture, data protection, observability, disaster recovery, FinOps, and infrastructure-as-code practices.

• Perform other duties as assigned or as necessary.

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

• Familiarity with graphical modeling approaches, tools, and model repositories.

• Knowledge of business ecosystems, Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), service-oriented architecture (SOA), APIs, open data, microservices, event-driven architecture, and predictive analytics.

• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills, including teamwork, facilitation, and negotiation.

• Comprehensive knowledge of the components and principles of holistic enterprise architecture.

• Experience developing and presenting business cases for infrastructure investments.

• Familiarity with information management practices, system development life cycle management, IT service management, Agile and Lean methodologies, infrastructure and operations, and enterprise architecture and ITIL frameworks.

• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex ideas and concepts to both technical and nontechnical audiences.

• Knowledge of business engineering principles and processes.

Education/Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Enterprise Architecture, Technology, or a related field, with seven (7) or more years of experience performing enterprise architecture work.

• [OR] Associate degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, with nine (9) or more years of experience performing enterprise architecture work.

• [OR] High school diploma or GED with eleven (11) or more years of experience performing enterprise architecture work.

Why should you join our team?

At Consumers Energy, we offer more than just a place to work. We foster a culture that supports career development, growth, and stability, and we take pride in offering our co-workers excellent benefits and compensation packages. We are deliberately creating an inclusive culture that makes our diverse team of co-workers feel valued, supported, and empowered every day. We're a company made up of thousands of people, all with different stories to share and work to do, but we stand united in our company purpose: world class performance delivering hometown service.

What we offer:

• Competitive compensation packages

• Medical, Dental and Vision

• 401k with company match

• Paid parental leave

• Up to 13 paid Holidays

• Paid time off

• Educational Assistance Program

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:

We, at CMS Energy, value Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. It is part of our DNA. We treat our employees with respect, we treat each other fairly and we value the opinions of others. We are passionate about building and nurturing an environment where everyone feels included. We don’t discriminate. We seek to learn about each other and better understand our unique differences. Our uniqueness makes us authentic. We create safe spaces where everyone can be who they truly are. We invite difficult conversations and uncomfortable topics. We value diverse perspectives; this is what makes us great together. We harbor an inclusive environment where employees feel empowered to share their backgrounds, experiences, and ideas. Our Employee Resource Groups, Women in Energy (WE), Minority Advisory Panel (MAP), Pride Alliance of Consumers Energy (PACE), GENERGY (Different Generations), capable (Different Abilities), Interfaith, People Planet Partners, and Veterans Advisory Panel (VAP) are key enablers to living the values of our company culture: Caring, Empowered, Deliberate, Agility, and Ownership.

All qualified applicants will not be discriminated against and will receive consideration for employment without regard to protected veteran status, disability, race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.