Under the general guidance of the IT Solution Delivery Manager, the Application Architect III is responsible for providing application architectural and portfolio oversight for the development of new and enhanced software products at client. This position serves as an expert resource and relies on extensive experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. The Application Architect III is expected to be familiar with a wide variety of IT concepts, practices, and technologies including software development, relational database management systems, cybersecurity, and change management. This position may lead and direct the work of others. In accordance with DFI's time and attendance requirements, this position must report in-person to the Hill Farms State Office building in Madison, WI.

Essential Duties

• Serve as an expert resource and change agent to mature and modernize DFI's overall SDLC practices with specific focus on application architecture, coding standards, database architecture, cybersecurity, CI/CD pipeline, and DevOps.
• Recommend and implement strategies to reduce technical debt in the application portfolio.
• Responsible for ensuring quality and consistency of software architecture across the application portfolio and providing day-to-day technical guidance to the development teams.
• Define the system, technical, and application architectures for major areas of development, and recommend courses of action to maintain cost effectiveness and competitiveness.
• Stay up to date on business initiatives and objectives, particularly relating to infrastructure and development architecture issues.
• Research and implement best practices frameworks/capability models that will control costs, provide higher quality, and/or increase predictability and quality of solution delivery.
• Research new technology and development tools to remain abreast of current and emerging technology.

Top Required skills (minimum 6 years of experience):

• Ability to identify, lead, and implement initiatives and strategies to modernize, secure, and reduce technical debt across an enterprise application portfolio.
• Expert level knowledge of Microsoft .NET web development
• Advanced knowledge of Relational Database Management concepts and technologies
• Effective and professional communication and interpersonal skills
• Highly self-motivated with the ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks with strong attention to detail.

Top Nice to Have skills:

• Expert level knowledge of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) administration
• Expert level knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server administration
• Expert level knowledge of Business Analysis
• Expert level knowledge of Project Management