Dir, Enterprise & Data Architecture

Join the Spark Team

We were born of innovation, springing from the curiosity, imagination and dedication of remarkable scientists and healthcare visionaries. Our shared mission is to unlock the power of gene therapy to accelerate healthcare transformation. 

We don’t follow footsteps. We create the path.

Primary Duties

The Director, Enterprise & Data Architecture (E&DA) leads the development of the enterprise and data architecture strategy and develops the enterprise and data technology roadmap that is aligned with Spark’s business strategy. This is an integral role in building a holistic view and roadmap of Spark’s technology strategy, processes, and information technology roadmap. This role defines reusable enterprise standards, guidelines, patterns, and frameworks for application implementation projects.

The Director ED&A has extensive knowledge of architectural frameworks, methodologies, tools, and applies essential, unifying concepts and principles of IT systems, their components, and relationships to each other. Responsible for partnering with both business and technology groups to ensure that proposed business and technical solutions align with Spark’s overall mission and vision.

The Director E&DA is also responsible for optimizing data architecture, data models and data repositories including designing, developing, and deploying improved conceptual, logical, and physical data artifacts for our most complex ecosystems (e.g., GTIC). The role develops data and metadata policies and procedures for structural design and development to build, maintain and leverage the data model, ensuring integration with corporate data standards. He/she is responsible for Responsibilities

Job Function and Description

30%      Strategy and Design

• Lead and facilitate interaction with business leaders, project managers and solution owners to ensure that IT decisions are made with an understanding of their impact on the enterprise. 
• Understand the relationship between people, processes, information, and technology and their relationships to one another and to the external environment.
• Provide consultative advice to business leaders and organizational stakeholders who seek actionable recommendations to make investment decisions.
• Work with, and across IT Leadership and the business to ensure development of and compliance to standards to ensure seamless integration of data, process, and tools.
• Lead the evolution of the enterprise architecture function and the data architecture function, including the coordination of our enterprise information systems, data, technical, and solution architecture viewpoints.
• Manage relationships with strategic product/service vendors to ensure alignment between their technical strategies and Spark business objectives.
• Provide on-going guidance, mentoring, feedback to the team to ensure competent performance while adhering to business function and Spark policies and procedures.

30%      Develop and Manage the E&DA Blueprint and Roadmap

• Develop and present the aggregate, integrated IT roadmaps, which reflect the status of the existing IT landscape, namely, its ability to contribute to future-state business capabilities, inclusive of data integration capabilities.
• Facilitate a collaborative relationship across functional business areas, IT leaders, and project teams to analyze the IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Ensure the building of Spark Computing Environment across the domains of Application, Information and Infrastructure are aligned with, supportive of, our architecture strategies.
• Participate in the SDLC process as a subject matter expert, reviewing and planning technology and data solutions.

30%      Govern Enterprise & Data Architecture

• Lead Enterprise & Data Architecture to ensure consistency of technologies and standards across the business.
• Responsible for overseeing the creation and implementation of Information Technology and Data architectures necessary to preserve and enhance the effective and efficient use of technology by Spark. 
• Establish a strategic vendor architecture review process to ensure alignment of key vendors and their technology strategies and capabilities with Spark business objectives.
• Ensure Technology investments are appropriate and aligned with our architecture blueprint and roadmaps.
• Develop and maintain policies, standards, and guidelines to ensure that a consistent framework is applied across the Spark.
• Lead and facilitate the creation of governing principles to guide solution decision making for enterprise and data architecture.
• Ensure that the optimal governance structure and compliance activities (such as handling waivers) are associated with enterprise and data architecture compliance.
• Oversee enterprise and data architecture implementation, ongoing architecture refinement activities, and the documentation of all enterprise and data architecture design and analysis work. 
• Collaborate with the Delivery & Data Services team members in the identification and analysis of business drivers to derive enterprise business, information, technical, data and solution architecture requirements.
• Collaborate with these partners to analyze the current business and IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Collaborate closely with the Director, Data Engineering to design and implement data integration services, starting with our manufacturing facility, GTIC.
• Drive efforts in improving the performance, availability and scalability of the data layer across Spark’s on-premises and cloud application landscape.
• Responsible for designing and guiding the development / evolution of master data management systems and data warehouse / data lake repositories and reference data.
• Develop and guide the business and IT in processes for the resolution of data quality issues, such as uniqueness, integrity, accuracy, consistency, and completeness in a cost-effective and timely fashion.

10%      Facilitate Innovation and Growth

• Keeps abreast of changes in relevant technology and best practices and look for opportunities to apply such changes within the organization.
• As needed, provide IT leadership, guidance, and counsel for mergers and acquisitions, development of strategic plans, enhancement of IT business processes, and evaluation of new opportunities and technologies.
• Remain current on industry specific knowledge and emerging technology.

Education and Experience Requirements

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science (or related technical field)
• 15+ years of progressive experience in Leadership roles in global large scale business systems transformation projects or equivalent, including multi-national and multi-cultural experience.
• 10+ years of experience in enterprise, data, and/or solution architecture, or related role or equivalent.
• A broad understanding of the pharmaceutical industry/healthcare industry.
• Knowledge of Enterprise and Data Architecture standards, processes, methods, reference models and frameworks, such as TOGAF.

Key Skills, Abilities, and Competencies

• Balance the long-term and short-term implications of individual decisions and organization goals
• Understand and speak the language of the life sciences business
• Awareness of emerging technologies, their capabilities and architecture and an ability to determine business benefit and impact
• Ability to manage complex system needs into meaningful actions and lead a major change initiatives
• Strong leadership and soft and interpersonal skills, including experience leading and directing cross-functional project teams, team facilitation, negotiation, and people management.
• Excellent budget management and financial acumen
• Excellent planning, organizational, analytical, and technical skills
• Excellent written, verbal, communication, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate new ideas and concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences
• Familiarity with information management practices, solution development life cycle management, IT services management, agile and lean methodologies, infrastructure and operations, and EA and ITIL frameworks
• Strong understanding of modern enterprise cloud platforms and technologies, e.g., SaaS technologies and Azure, Google, AWS cloud services
• Strong knowledge of General and Administrative, Commercial, Clinical, Research & Development, and technical operations life sciences functional business lines/processes and the applied core technologies to enable the organization to operate efficiently.
• Proven experience in enterprise, data and integration architecture - APIs, ESBs, ETL, REST/SOAP
• Knowledge of container strategies, e.g., Kubernetes, EC2, Docker
• Substantial exposure to Big Data Analytics and Data Architecture & Modeling (Tools – ERWIN)
• Deep knowledge of data warehouse technologies
• Considerable knowledge of Cloud computing / SaaS / IaaS / PaaS technologies
• Proven experience in master data management, data modeling tools and data visualization
• Strong experience in integration technologies
• Knowledge of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Ability to tie together solutions and data across systems
• Strong business acumen
• Knowledge of business process modeling
• Knowledge of required technologies (incl 3rd party solutions)
• Deep understanding of cutting-edge technologies, particularly in the data space

Complexity and Problem Solving

This role leads, prioritizes and develops the overall enterprise and data architecture approach for the organization, and communicates architectural direction. He / she has purview into (and may directly manage) other architecture-related activities and the respective roles (such as business, information and data, solution and technical). He / she works with every function to design and guide delivery of IT solutions.

This role leads and coordinates all aspects of the E&DA practice, including:

• Business Architecture: Focused on guiding people, process, and organizational change.
• Information & Data Architecture: Focused on the consistent sharing of information across the enterprise.
• Solution Architecture: Focused on developing a direction for managing the portfolio of to-be solutions.
• Technical Architecture: Focused on evolving the technical infrastructure.
• Security Architecture: Focused on managing IT risk through the exchange of information between people, systems and processes inside and outside the organization.

Internal and External Contacts

• Internal: Consultative point of contact for senior leadership in support of advancing business strategies and goals with information and technology solutions.
• Internal: Primary interface for conducting IT strategy, capability advancement and multi-year road mapping to shape their portfolio of investments.
• Internal: Primary interface with the IT Delivery & Program Management project teams. 
• Vendor: Primary point of contact for architect vendors, including oversight of managed services and consultant oversight as well collaborative architecture directions.

Industry Institutional Thought Leaders: Collaborative relationships to explore potential opportunities to innovate

Spark takes into consideration a combination of candidate’s education, training, and experience as well as the position’s scope and complexity, the discretion and latitude required in the role, and external market and internal value when determining a salary for potential new employees.  The base salary range for this position is currently from $178,400.00 to $267,600.00. 

Spark Therapeutics does not accept unsolicited resumes/candidate profiles from any source other than directly from candidates. Any unsolicited resume/candidate profile submitted through our website or to personal email accounts of employees of Spark Therapeutics are considered property of Spark Therapeutics and are not subject to payment of agency fees.