Enterprise Architect, Principal (Utility Asset Management)

Job Description:

Department Overview-Information Technology is a unified organization comprised of various departments which collaborate to effectively deliver high quality technology solutions. IT functions are to design, develop, operate and maintain the information and telecommunications systems that enable the Company to meet its commitment to customers: Keeping the Lights on and the Gas Flowing, delivering at a Reasonable Price, and Providing Simple and Convenient Options.

Summary

• Hiring priority: Enterprise Architect Principal (Utility Asset Management) for a direct hire role backfilling a domain-specific position at PG&E.
• Critical requirements: Minimum 10 years of experience and a Bachelor's degree; candidates must demonstrate expertise in remote sensing data (LiDAR, drone, imagery), vendor assessments/RFPs, and enterprise strategy development.
• Key tech stack and tools: Preference for experience with GIS, S3, Digital Twins, Palantir, Snowflake, and asset modeling tools.

Full Notes

Role Overview and Strategic Objectives

• The hiring team is seeking an Enterprise Architect Principal Level for Utility Asset Management.
  • This position is a backfill for a previous domain architect who recently retired from the Enterprise Business Capability Architecture team.
  • The primary focus involves managing utility assets across gas, electric, hydro, and nuclear domains to determine asset risks and maintenance strategies.
• The role is strategically focused, with 95% of the workload involves developing enterprise strategies rather than project-level delivery.
  • A non-negotiable requirement is the ability to conduct vendor assessments and support the RFP process to ensure technological fit and financial viability.
  • The successful candidate must translate business needs into technology requirements and manage internal governance processes.
• The first 6 to 12 months will prioritize stakeholder interviews and the creation of a draft enterprise strategy.
  • Specific assignments include evaluating tool consolidation, such as determining if current business use cases should remain on the S3 platform or transition to third-party tools.

Candidate Qualifications and Technical Requirements

• Required professional experience includes a minimum of 10 years at the principal level and a completed Bachelor's degree.
  • The utility domain knowledge is required due to the complexity of the assets.
  • Candidates must have experience extracting value from remote sensing data, including LiDAR, drone flights, field inspections, and video imagery.
• The technical stack involves several specific platforms and modeling capabilities.
  • Essential knowledge includes S3, GIS, and asset modeling tools.
  • Familiarity with digital twins, Palantir, and Snowflake is highly desired for managing enterprise data.
  • Experience with AI implementation is considered a preference and the "new norm," though it is not a hard requirement for the role.

Position Summary

Enterprise Strategy & Architecture (ES&A) is a centralized architecture group within the Information Technology department. The group supports PG&E's safety, reliability and affordability goals under the architecture mandate of Reuse, Rationalize, Optimize, and Standardize.

Reporting to the Lead Enterprise Architect, the successful candidate in the role will be a Master Planner with a big picture mindset responsible for turning the architecture vision for the business domains into reality by:

• Developing thorough understanding of the business processes, application portfolio and underlying IT infrastructure
• Suggesting technology needs to enable business maturity and help prioritize the right investments
• Create business architecture models to help connect business vision, goals and outcomes to corresponding technology implementation roadmaps
• Owning the architecture of a portfolio of applications
• Create enterprise strategy in alignment with PG&E's True North Strategy Goals
• Helping build and maintain prioritized portfolio backlogs for business features and foundational or shared capabilities
• Enabling and empowering execution teams by delivering reusable architecture patterns, architecture building blocks, reference architecture, implementation best practices, and architecture decision frameworks
• Coaching, mentoring, and guiding the implementation teams throughout the value chain
• Collaborating with several teams within Business and IT on a regular basis

The successful candidate will have strong experience with diverse set of technologies and platforms with deep expertise in at least a few, highly analytical, and project management skills. You should also have strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills. Experience working with or in the utility industry is highly desirable but not required.

Job Responsibilities

• Partner with senior business and IT leadership to develop technology roadmaps for Asset Management (Inspections, Risk Management, Analytics & Reporting, Digital Twins)
• Collaborate with business to enable their future goals by leveraging AI/ML/Gen AI technology
• Assess current IT application environment for asset and risk domain and develop future IT target architecture.
• Lead vendor assessments, support RFPs, and application rationalization efforts.
• Support IT strategic planning and portfolio modernization process.
• Coordinate roadmaps across enterprise groups to manage conflicts, redundancies, and interdependencies.
• Collaborate with domain enterprise architects to ensure strategies, standards, design patterns, and roadmaps are consistent and integrated.
• Support project delivery and provide enterprise architecture view to support solution designs.
• Stay updated with developments in AI, edge computing, and other emerging industry segments.
• Be a self-starter, able to solve complex issues with cross-functional teams, and thrive in a fast-moving, agile environment.

Qualifications

Minimum:

• BA/BS degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business or a related subject or equivalent experience
• 10 years of enterprise architecture experience

Desired:

• Experience in Utilities with focus areas such as: Asset and Risk Management (Inspections, Enabling AI/ML for Asset Management, Risk Management, Analytics & Reporting)
• Master's degree in computer science, Engineering, Business, or a related field
• Architecture implementation experience with technologies in SAP, GIS, Enterprise Reporting and Analytics specific to Asset Management, AI Implementation in Asset Risk Management domain
• Excellent Communication and Interpersonal skills
• High-energy, passionate, and positive outlook with strong sense of ownership
• Familiarity with diverse application development technologies and platforms
• Good understanding of business and data architecture, business capability mapping, and business process reengineering
• Solution architecture and project implementation experience
• Relevant architecture certification such as TOGAF