Associate Senior Enterprise Architect

Job #: req35931
Organization: World Bank
Sector: Information Technology
Grade: GG
Term Duration:  3 years 0 months
Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment
Location: Washington, DC,United States
Required Language(s): English
Preferred Language(s):
Closing Date: 3/24/2026 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

Description

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 130 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org
ITS Vice Presidency Context:
The Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) enables the World Bank Group to achieve its mission of ending extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet by delivering transformative information and technologies to its staff working in over 150+ locations. For more information on ITS, see this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w
Department Context
The World Bank Group Technology Office (ITSTO) defines and executes the technology strategy for the World Bank Group, ensuring that technological investments and standards deliver secure, resilient, and efficient platforms to support global operations. Through strategic planning, enterprise architecture, platform engineering, and core infrastructure management, ITSTO aligns technology initiatives with the Bank Group’s mission and business objectives.
ITSTO drives technology-enabled innovation, modernizes infrastructure, and enhances organizational agility. By fostering collaboration across all World Bank Group entities—including IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA, and ICSID—ITSTO leverages technology as a catalyst for accelerating development impact and advancing digital transformation. Its leadership ensures that technology serves as a strategic enabler for achieving the Bank Group’s development goals, empowering the institution to address emerging challenges and opportunities with greater efficiency and effectiveness.
Unit Context
The Enterprise Architecture (ITSET) unit enables strategy execution by connecting business goals with technology investments, frameworks, and delivery models. ITSET ensures coherence, interoperability, and business value realization through standards, reference architecture, and governance. The unit drives portfolio alignment, process optimization, and adoption of data-driven practices across the WBG.
Duties and accountabilities: 
The Associate Senior Portfolio Architect partners with Portfolio Leadership and business owners to define and steer the technology vision, strategy, and roadmap for the portfolio. The role ensures that architecture enables current and future business outcomes, aligns with strategic themes and value streams, and accelerates delivery through a governed architectural runway. The EA orchestrates cross-value-stream alignment, sets guardrails and standards, and drives reuse across enterprise platforms, cloud services, and low-code/no code capabilities balancing intentional design with emergent needs. code capabilities balancing intentional design with emergent needs.
The role requires a hands-on approach in a multicultural environment which supports diversity, continuous learning, enhancing skillsets, and collaboration. The ideal candidate must demonstrate excellent communication skills as the position requires frequent interaction with multiple cross-functional teams. The candidate must possess a strong sense of curiosity, adaptability, and the drive to learn and innovate. 
We provide a meaningful, open, and collaborative environment. We have many interesting problems to solve, providing you an opportunity to develop your skills while contributing to the mission of the bank. We value teamwork, openness, curiosity, and persistence.
Key Responsibilities:
Strategy and Roadmap
• Partner with the lines of businesses to define the portfolio’s technology vision, strategy, and multi year roadmap aligned to enterprise strategic themes and business outcomes.

• Translate business capabilities and value streams into target-state architectures, reference models, and platform roadmaps.

• Ensure alignment with Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), budgeting cycles, and investment guardrails.

Architectural Runway and Governance

• Establish and maintain the architectural runway that enables upcoming Epics, Enablers, and capabilities across value streams and ARTs.

• Set and enforce architectural guardrails, principles, patterns, and standards; promote reuse, composability, and scalable design leveraging enterprise platforms and low-code/no-code tooling.

• Govern architectural decisions through structured forums (e.g., Architecture Review Boards), ensuring traceability, risk management, and compliance.
Platform Enablement and Emerging Tech

• Define the technology foundation for low code/no code platforms supporting consumer-facing applications and business-led IT; set policies for governance, security, and lifecycle management.

• Partner with lines of business to design platforms and reference architectures that enable agentic (AI-driven) transformation, including safe adoption of AI agents, automation, and data integration.
Delivery Alignment and Flow
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architects, Solution/System Architects, Product Management, and VMO to route and refine Epics, Enablers, and capabilities through the Portfolio Kanban using WSJF and other prioritization mechanisms.

• Balance emergent design with planned work; guide architectural decisions within PI planning and solution trains to improve flow and reduce time-to-value.

NFRs, Risk, and Security

• Define and manage nonfunctional requirements (performance, reliability, availability, observability, scalability) across portfolios.

• Integrate security-by-design, privacy, data governance, and resiliency into architecture; ensure alignment with enterprise risk, compliance, and regulatory requirements.
Cross-Portfolio Coordination and Coaching
• Facilitate cross value stream coordination, share lessons learned, and lead architectural governance ceremonies to ensure consistency and convergence.

• Mentor architects and delivery teams to uplift architectural practices, hygiene, and engineering excellence.

Selection Criteria

• Bachelor’s degree with 10 years of experience or Master’s degree with 8 years of experience in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.

• 10+ years in architecture roles (enterprise, solution, or systems) with experience in large-scale portfolios and SAFe/Lean environments.

• Proven leadership in establishing architectural standards, platforms, and governance at scale.

• Hands-on exposure to cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), integration technologies, API management, CI/CD, observability, and security frameworks.

• Experience with low-code/no-code platforms and policies for business-led IT.

• Familiarity with AI/ML platforms, agentic automation, and data governance preferred.

• Relevant certifications (e.g., SAFe Architect, TOGAF, AWS/Azure/GCP Architect, CISSP/CCSP) are a plus.
Core Competencies:
Strategic and Systems Thinking
• Translate business strategy and value streams into coherent target architectures and executable roadmaps.

• Apply systems thinking to optimize the end-to-end portfolio ecosystem and interdependencies.

Architectural Governance and Runway Management
• Establish guardrails, standards, and patterns that enable speed with control; manage the architectural runway to support near-term delivery and long-term evolution.
SAFe and Lean Portfolio Management Expertise
• Mastery of Portfolio Kanban, WSJF prioritization, Epic/Enabler lifecycle, guardrails, PI planning, and alignment with LPM.
Technology Strategy and Modern Architecture Patterns
• Deep knowledge of cloud-native architectures, APIs and integration patterns, event-driven design, microservices vs. modular monoliths, data mesh/data platform concepts, automation/DevOps, and Zero Trust security.
Communication and Facilitation
• Executive-level storytelling and stakeholder engagement; facilitate architecture discussions, ARBs, and governance forums; produce clear decision records (ADRs) and roadmaps.
Metrics and Decision Support
• Use architectural metrics (e.g., reuse rate, technical debt, flow efficiency, NFR adherence, cost-to-serve) and portfolio data to inform investment decisions and trade-offs.
Success Measures
• Architectural runway readiness and reuse across value streams.

• Reduced cycle time to deliver Epics and Enablers; improved flow efficiency.

• NFR compliance and security posture improvements across portfolio solutions.

• Adoption of guardrails and standards; decrease in technical debt and redundancy.

• Business outcomes realized against strategic themes and investment guardrails.

WBG Culture Attributes:

1. Sense of urgency: Anticipate and quickly respond to the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
2. Thoughtful risk-taking: Challenge the status quo and push boundaries to achieve greater impact.
3. Empowerment and accountability: Empower yourself and others to act and hold each other accountable for results.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC including our values and inspiring stories.

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