Digital Application Architect

Awarded a Healthiest Employer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona aims to fulfill its mission to inspire health and make it easy. AZ Blue offers a variety of health insurance products and services to meet the diverse needs of individuals, families, and small and large businesses as well as providing information and tools to help individuals make better health decisions.

At AZ Blue, we have a hybrid workforce strategy, called Workability, that offers flexibility with how and where employees work. Our positions are classified as hybrid, onsite or remote. While the majority of our employees are hybrid, the following classifications drive our current minimum onsite requirements:

• Hybrid People Leaders: must reside in AZ, required to be onsite at least twice per week

• Hybrid Individual Contributors: must reside in AZ, unless otherwise cited within this posting, required to be onsite at least once per week

• Hybrid 2 (Operational Roles such as but not limited to: Customer Service, Claims Processors, and Correspondence positions): must reside in AZ, unless otherwise cited within this posting, required to be onsite at least once per month

• Onsite: daily onsite requirement based on the essential functions of the job

• Remote: not held to onsite requirements, however, leadership can request presence onsite for business reasons including but not limited to staff meetings, one-on-ones, training, and team building

Please note that onsite requirements may change in the future, based on business need, and job responsibilities. Most employees should expect onsite requirements and at a minimum of once per week.

This position is hybrid within the state of AZ only.  This hybrid work opportunity requires residency, and work to be performed, within the State of Arizona.

PURPOSE OF THE JOB

The Digital Application Architect will be responsible for the solution design of applications in all digital technology projects from inception through production support, providing industry best practices and acting as a trusted advisor to key business and technology stakeholders. The Application Architect will lead/oversee the technical design, analysis, user story definition, logical data model design, functional system design, data manipulation, testing, post-implementation review, specifications and documentation based on business requirements. This role will oversee the development of effective technology solutions that are highly maintainable, reliable, easily extensible, scalable, and secure.

Further, the Application Architect will be responsible for developing security improvements for the company’s customer facing websites and backend applications and serve as a SME on website and application-related projects. The role will work with digital teams to implement emerging security technologies/tools to address current and future threats and creates and maintains documentation as it relates to security designs/configuration, processes, and requirements.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

1. Required Work Experience

• 7 years of experience with application design and development.

• 3 years of experience architecting applications in .Net and Microsoft Technologies

• 3 years of experience in implementation and integration of digital enterprise-level applications in a complex business environment

• 2 years of experience in implementing or enhancing application security.

1. Required Education

• High School Diploma

2. Required Licenses

• N/A

3.Required Certifications

• N/A

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 1. Preferred Work Experience
• 5 years of experience architecting applications in .Net and Microsoft Technologies
• 2 years of experience in cloud-based system design
• Demonstrated experience across multiple IT technology domains including software development languages and platforms, design frameworks and patterns, infrastructure platforms, data management and database technologies, cloud and networking technologies, and security frameworks
• Experience in applying Service-Oriented Architecture to solutions.
• Deep knowledge and experience in using and applying API, SOAP, WSDL, JSON, ESB, and XML based solutions.

2. Preferred Education

• Master’s Degree in business, computer science or related field

3.       Preferred Licenses

• N/A

4.Preferred Certifications

• Technical certifications in software and systems design and development
• Microsoft Technical Certifications
• Cloud Architect Certification

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Accountable for producing solution designs to maintain and improve digital systems
• Ensuring solutions conform to Architecture Principles
• Validating requirements to facilitate effectively developed solutions
• Delivery of Digital Impact Assessments, including sizing estimates for squad effort
• Identify security impacts and circulate to other teams
• Be responsible for the delivery of Digital architecture artefacts and review non-digital artefacts
• Work with 3rd Party service providers when necessary
• Understand key regulatory requirements (PCI, NACHA, HIPAA, 508 compliances etc.) and their potential impacts on Digital solutions/Products
• Design and implement the architecture and deployment of high performance, integrated web and mobile systems centered around the enterprise’s digital footprint
• Work closely with IT Management, product owners, scrum masters and project management throughout software development cycle to provide input to business requirements, deliver technical requirement and estimates, deliver status reports, and meet project deadlines
• Design appropriate security controls in every solution to ensure the network, applications, and data are not compromised.
• Leading the design and implementation of custom technical solutions, on-premises, cloud (Azure/AWS) and hybrid cloud
• Work closely with digital delivery teams to ensure alignment of plans with what is being delivered.
• Facilitate communications between IT teams and business stakeholders for technical issues and/or major changes, acting as the technical domain subject matter expert.
• Provide expertise to educate, coach and mentor team members; provide performance feedback to manager(s).
• Drive standardization efforts for development environments, tools, and deployment procedures 

Strategy

• Participate in developing technical strategy; apply and promote security technology that optimizes the portfolio of technologies, tools, products, and applications.
• Collaborate closely with Digital teams, IT leaders, business stakeholders, enterprise architects and subject matter experts to use technology to improve overall digital footprint.

OTHER

• The position requires a full-time work schedule. Full-time is defined as working at least 40 hours per week, plus any additional hours as requested or as needed to meet business requirements.
• Position may require evening, weekend, or on-call schedules, depending on project requirements and/or system status.
• Perform all other duties as assigned.

REQUIRED COMPETENCIES

1.       Required Job Skills

• Strong knowledge of application security and securing the complete solution
• Mastery of coding design patterns and services architecture
• A proven track record of using technology to capitalize on business opportunities and deliver projects on time and on budget consistently.
• Proven experience in documenting business processes and creating process flow diagram tools, UML, sequence diagrams, etc.
• Strong leadership, partnership, collaboration and teambuilding skills.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure hosting technologies
• Strong understanding of software development methodologies.
• Ability to apply verbal, written and persuasive communication skills to influence others both individually and groups.
• Proficient in utilization of audio/visual tools to effectively present to groups and capable of presenting technical information to other functions or groups both inside and outside of the organization
• Collaborate closely with business stakeholders and development teams to ensure the architecture and design is usable, maintainable, scalable, reliable, extensible, secure, portable and functional.
• Understand, advocate and augment the standards, best practices and architectural principles that guide solution decisions, development environments, tools, and deployment procedures for the enterprise.
• Strong self-starter, motivated, enthusiastic, risk taker, innovative, and customer service oriented with a record of success.
• Excellent organizational and planning skills.
• Ability to cope with the rapid pace and constant change associated with the industry.
• Ability to successfully manage numerous projects simultaneously.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both oral and written, with internal and external contacts.
• Extensive experience or understanding of services technologies and standards, .NET platform, and Web Service Specifications WS
• Technical expertise knowledge in: XML and Web Services, XML, XSLT, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI and GRID.
• Expertise in  ASP.NET,MVC, Angular,VB.NET,XML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT / JQUERY, SQL, Content Management Systems, and GUI Development
• Strong understanding of infrastructure architecture and security architecture concepts.
• Advanced knowledge of object oriented principals, design patterns, SOA, and enterprise systems
• Strong command of database design concepts
• Undersanding of NoSQL, MS Dynamics CRM technologies and microservices architecture
• Familiarity with an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) architecture in Microsoft BizTalk or other platform
• Mobile development experience with technologies like Xamarin, Xamarin Forms, Ionic etc an advantage
• Familiarity with Cloud Technolgies

2.       Required Professional Competencies

• Ability to take appropriate risks, using available data.

• Ability to build synergy with a diverse team in an ever-changing environment

• Anticipate downstream technical needs and steer architectural designs to appropriately factor in considerations.

• Strong analytical skills to support independent and effective decisions.

• Strong verbal and written communications skills and the ability to interact professionally with a diverse group of executives, managers, and subject matter experts.

• Highly skilled at designing and implementing multiple tier architecture solutions, developing high-performance and secure systems and system integration

• Work effectively with management, project managers, business analysts, developers, engineers, architects, system administrators, and QA to conceive, design, and deliver successful software solutions.

• Able to operate at varying levels of abstraction including business and product strategy, design, and implementation

3. Required Leadership Experience and Competencies

• Provide leadership, promote teamwork, meet objectives and exercise independent judgment
• Experience leading and implementing projects and working collaboratively with other departments levels
• Ability to prioritize tasks and work with multiple priorities, sometimes under limited time contstraints.

PREFERRED COMPETENCIES

1.       Preferred Job Skills

• Knowledge of HIPAA security and privacy standards.

2.       Preferred Professional Competencies

• N/A

3.       Preferred Leadership Experience and Competencies

• N/A
  
  

Our Commitment

AZ Blue does not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status or any other protected group.

Thank you for your interest in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona.  For more information on our company, see azblue.com.  If interested in this position, please apply.