Are you looking to change careers? If you’re looking for a career that provides a great salary and almost guaranteed work, you should turn to an IT job.
Not just any IT job, but one in enterprise architecture. Even small scale technology projects have become complex. This means that all types of organizations are hiring enterprise architects to manage these projects and the overall networks the company relies on to function.
An enterprise architect job description may not mention this, but it’s a pressure filed job. At the same time, there’s a high salary that comes with it. The median salary for enterprise architects is about $142,000 a year.
Do you want to know more? Keep reading to learn how to become an enterprise architect and get your career on track.
What Is Enterprise Architecture?
Before we dig into the job description of an enterprise architect, it would help to know what enterprise architecture is.
Simply put, it’s the place where technology meets your business goals. It’s a top-down approach to implementing information technology by making sure that all networks and systems are aligned with a company’s mission, vision, and strategic goals.
That’s a big shift from a standard IT setup. In the past, IT professionals would create and implement solutions based on best technology practices. It didn’t matter what the goals of the company were.
This would cause a gap in information between IT and the rest of the company. It would also be the source of frustration for many workers as well.
Enterprise architecture tightens up standards to ensure a much more efficient workflow across an organization.
By 2020, about 80% of all businesses are expected to have some form of enterprise architecture to manage a large amount of data needed to run the business.
A Typical Enterprise Architect Job Description
You might be wondering how an enterprise architect spends most of their day. A lot of the day to day work is revealed in an enterprise architect job description.
Here’s a sample job description to give you a general idea.
We’re hiring an enterprise architect to take a leading role in the infrastructure of our organization. The responsibilities are broad, including making improvements to the current IT environment.
The enterprise architect is also expected to create an infrastructure that is aligned with our business goals. They will communicate progress and recommend policy changes to key stakeholders throughout the organization.
The key functions are to:
- Create and recommend cost-saving measures
- Develop policies around the enterprise framework
- Ensure data is secure and complies with all regulatory authorities
- Train employees and deliver presentations to the executive team
- Excellent presentation and communication skills
- Ability to lead a team
Education Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in IT or similar field of study
- Certifications in Enterprise Architecture
This is just a sample of what you’ll come across. This will help you know what to expect as you enter the market as an enterprise architect.
How to Become an Enterprise Architect
You have a better understanding as too what’s required of enterprise architects. You’re going to be the one leading the charge and be responsible for a lot within the organization. These are just a few things you can do to land a job and be prepared to lead.
Education & Training
Your first step in becoming an enterprise architect is to get the appropriate education. Most companies will require at least a bachelor’s degree to even be considered for a position. A degree in information technology or business information systems would be useful to have.
Once you have a degree, you’ll need additional training. You want to get certified in enterprise architecture to have a deeper understanding of your role within a company.
Make the Complex Simple
You may think that your main job is to manage the infrastructure of the networks and manage staff. That’s only a small part of the equation.
Most of your work will be in working with executives to sell them on ideas and to communicate how the network works to make employees more productive.
You need to be able to take complex ideas and technologies and deliver information about them in layman’s terms. That is an underappreciated but critical skill in your organization.
Your work goes across departments and impacts the entire organization. People are quick to blame things that they don’t understand when they have issues. No one in your organization truly understands IT and they will point fingers at your department more often than you think.
The more you can communicate across departments, the more people will understand the work that you do.
Get Experience
Once you get certified and feel ready to take on an IT role in a company, you’ll want to get as much experience as possible.
You want to decide what kind of organization you want to work in. Different industries and companies of different sizes have unique needs.
For example, healthcare and financial industries have to abide by data privacy regulations. You may decide that you want to get experience in a number of different places before making a decision.
Stay on Top of Industry Changes
You want to make sure that you stay up to date with industry changes. You can be sure that technologies will evolve in a way that will impact your networks.
For example, companies are starting to rely on artificial intelligence for everything from marketing to customer service. You need to be able to anticipate these changes so you can implement the best ones in your company.
Start Your Career as an Enterprise Architect
How would you like to earn six-figures and use your skillset to combine technology with business? When you read an enterprise architect job description, you’ll discover that this is a position with a ton of excitement and potential.
Starting a career as an enterprise architect does require that you have the right degrees and certifications. Beyond that, you need to show that you have the soft skills to succeed. You need to be able to lead teams, train employees, and understand how businesses function.
Do you want more great content? Check out the business and finance section of this site to learn more about business.