Enterprise Architect (API, EDA, AI)

Company: Western Governors University

Job Location:

Category: Network/System Administrator

Type: Full-Time

Job Type: Full time

Job Number: JR-025080

Location: Salt Lake City, UT

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country-and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future-consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 411 Pay Range: $157,000.00 - $243,400.00

Job Description

The Enterprise Architect position designs, implements, and maintains enterprise-wide solutions. This role evaluates current systems and recommends enhancements to ensure flexibility, resilience, scalability, and high performance. The Enterprise Architect will possess extensive experience in building robust systems and strong collaboration, design, and negotiation skills to align technology solutions with business objectives. This position works closely with cross-functional, distributed teams to develop and sustain a cohesive enterprise architecture framework that supports organizational goals. This position offers the opportunity to shape our technological landscape and drive transformative change.

Impact at WGU

If you are driven by transformation and innovation and want to shape technology that expands access to education, this role offers a unique opportunity to make a lasting impact. At WGU, our mission fuels how we build platforms, modernize systems, and responsibly adopt emerging technologies. As an Enterprise Architect, you will help define the future-state architecture that enables scale, resilience, and innovation across the university.

What You'll Do

• Define and maintain enterprise architecture standards, roadmaps, and reference architectures across academic and administrative systems.
• Align business strategy with technology investments to support long-term digital transformation.
• Lead an API-first architecture strategy, including governance, lifecycle management, and best practices for REST, GraphQL, and asynchronous APIs.
• Design and promote event-driven architectures using modern messaging platforms to enable scalable, decoupled systems.
• Architect and guide the integration of AI-enabled capabilities such as personalization, automation, and decision support.
• Partner closely with product, engineering, data, and security teams to influence architecture decisions across domains.
• Mentor architects and senior engineers while establishing architecture review processes and driving adherence to standards.

What You'll Bring

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, architecture, or related roles.
• 3+ years of experience as an Enterprise Architect or 7+ years in a senior technical leadership role such as technical lead or principal engineer.
• Proven experience designing enterprise-scale distributed systems and delivering successful technology transformations.
• Deep expertise in API architecture and integration patterns, event-driven systems, and cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Strong understanding of microservices, domain-driven design, and system integration.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership.
• Development experience in languages such as Java, C++, or Python, with hands-on exposure to AI solutions.

Bonus Points

• Experience integrating AI and ML systems, including LLMs or MLOps pipelines.
• Background in higher education, EdTech, or other mission-driven organizations.
• Familiarity with data architecture, analytics platforms, governance, or relevant architecture certifications.

What to Expect

At WGU, our mission drives everything we do, including how we hire. Our interview experience is designed to give qualified candidates the opportunity to show their best work through meaningful conversations and collaboration.
We thoughtfully review every application and invite forward the candidates whose experience and potential best align with the role and our mission.

Interview Steps

• Introductory call
• Hiring manager interview
• Technical team interview

Work Location

This is a full-time, in-office position at WGU's office in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Visa Sponsorship

While we welcome applicants from all backgrounds, WGU is not able to provide visa sponsorship for this role.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.

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