Enterprise Architect Higher Education

For the Higher Education Architects' Council (AB HO) we are looking for an Enterprise Architect to develop a state of the art reference architecture and architecture function for colleges and universities. Do you want to use your expertise to to this together with higher education institutions? Then we are looking for you!

Where you will work

SURF is the IT cooperative for Dutch educational and research institutions. Together with them, we work on digital services and complex innovation challenges to enhance the quality of education and research.

SURF facilitates the AB HO, a platform within which architects of higher education institutions collaborate to develop the Higher Education Reference Architecture (HORA) and the architecture function in the sector. The AB HO helps the higher education sector make better decisions based on overview and insight, with the aim of steering towards a coherent design of institutions and the higher education sector as a whole.

The team you will join

You will fall hierarchically under the Enterprise Architecture Team Leader of the SURF architecture team, but you will be functionally managed by the ABHO core team. Together with SURF's enterprise architecture team, you will report to our client/team CIOs (representing institutions) and the SURF Board. The AB HO architecture team also works closely with the institution architects who make up the higher education architects council. You will be based at SURF in Utrecht.

What you will do

Information provision in higher education is becoming increasingly complex due to digitization of education and research. Major challenges include digital transformation, internationalization, educational flexibility, lifelong development, open science and research data management. At the same time, technical developments such as cloud computing, AI and self sovereign identity play a role, as do legal issues around privacy, governance and public values. Working under architecture and the HORA help guide digitization. The HORA provides frameworks for the transition, but needs urgent maintenance. We are currently working hard on a new version.

As Enterprise Architect of the AB HO, you will contribute to this. You are responsible for the further development and propagation of the HORA and you have an important role in supporting institutions in developing the architecture function. Your first task will be to develop and improve enterprise architecture artifacts; models, principles, architecture building blocks and their interrelationships. You will do this in intensive collaboration with another Enterprise Architect from the AB HO - you will form a permanent twosome - and with the institutions. You also have an important role in the development of the architecture function. You promote the HORA towards the institutions and other platforms and organizations. As a member of the AB HO core team, you are responsible for HORA governance.

What else you are concerned with:

• You will translate the strategic goals of the higher education sector into architecture models, guidelines and principles; for the short term, the focus is on the education domain
• You will help develop roadmaps and development calendars to achieve these goals;
• You translate the frameworks of the sector reference architecture into the impact for the different projects of the institutions and sector partners;
• You will serve as an advisor to policy makers from sector partners, institutions and SURF, as well as colleagues across the sector when it comes to information assurance and architecture
• You will take the lead in the community of architects from the colleges and universities; in doing so, you will also be involved in organizing meetings

Your skills and experience

• Hbo+/academic work and thinking level;
• Extensive experience in enterprise architecture and large system landscapes;
• You are able to develop, together with many actors, vision and policies and to translate objectives into projects and into a coherent architecture in all layers of the architecture house
• You can model in ArchiMate;
• You have experience in leading workshops, presentations and knowledge sessions;
• You are decisive, results-oriented and communicatively strong;
• You have an excellent command of the Dutch and English languages.

SURF takes pleasure in doing its recruitment itself; acquisition is therefore not appreciated.