How to hire an enterprise architect

How to hire an enterprise architect, step by step

Here's a step-by-step enterprise architect hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write an enterprise architect job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new enterprise architect
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does an enterprise architect do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   The enterprise architect hiring process starts by determining what type of worker you actually need. Certain roles might require a full-time employee, whereas part-time workers or contractors can do others.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   An enterprise architect's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, enterprise architects from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents enterprise architect salaries for various positions.

   Type of Enterprise Architect	Description	Hourly rate
   Enterprise Architect		$41-77
   Architect And Developer	An Architect And Developer is focused on the technical design, architecture, and development of products. They generally work as a part of the development team.	$40-69
   Information Technology Architect	An information technology architect is responsible for designing and creating new technology systems and optimizing the performance of existing ones. Information technology architects analyze the business needs and client requirements to identify system features and technology infrastructure according to budget limitations and timetables... Show more	$42-73

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Cloud
   • Infrastructure
   • Roadmap
   • AWS
   • Java
   • Emerging Technologies
   • Cloud Computing
   • Governance
   • Azure
   • Digital Transformation
   • Enterprise Architecture
   • Project Management
   • Pre Sales
   • Amazon Web Services

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage and update Jenkins build service.
   • Lead the approach of microservices for large outboard services.
   • Develop the physical model, and work with the DBA on managing the physical environments.
   • Consolidate, manage and support the DCMO SharePoint, MilBook, Forge.mil and other DoD databases and platforms.
   • Support information assurance efforts to achieve and maintain DIACAP ATO status for an enterprise SharePoint farm host at DISA.
   • Manage the efforts of team members performing daily tasks, out-of-cycle maintenance, and attending to regularly schedule maintenance windows.

   More enterprise architect duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the enterprise architect job description is a good way to get more applicants. An enterprise architect salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for an enterprise architect in Maine may be lower than in California, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level enterprise architect. Additionally, an enterprise architect with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average enterprise architect salary

   $118,506yearly

   $56.97 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level enterprise architect salary

   $86,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 5, 2025

   Average enterprise architect salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$131,263	$63
   2	District of Columbia	$119,669	$58
   3	New York	$118,649	$57
   4	New Jersey	$118,320	$57
   5	North Carolina	$114,361	$55
   6	Pennsylvania	$112,193	$54
   7	Massachusetts	$112,095	$54
   8	Connecticut	$111,580	$54
   9	Georgia	$109,298	$53
   10	Illinois	$109,054	$52
   11	Arizona	$108,918	$52
   12	Virginia	$108,458	$52
   13	Maryland	$108,320	$52
   14	Texas	$108,158	$52
   15	Michigan	$107,934	$52
   16	Washington	$106,422	$51
   17	Missouri	$106,348	$51
   18	Utah	$106,068	$51
   19	Ohio	$104,699	$50
   20	Colorado	$103,945	$50

   Average enterprise architect salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Levi Strauss & Co.	$184,882	$88.89	1
   2	Safeway	$170,413	$81.93
   3	eBay	$169,303	$81.40	1
   4	BJC HealthCare	$168,230	$80.88	2
   5	Rubicon Global	$167,677	$80.61
   6	Okta	$162,710	$78.23	37
   7	Foundation Medicine	$162,126	$77.95
   8	Google	$160,996	$77.40	77
   9	Sally Beauty Holdings	$160,906	$77.36
   10	Claire's	$154,062	$74.07
   11	Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	$153,365	$73.73
   12	The Walt Disney Company	$153,337	$73.72	18
   13	Houston Methodist	$152,068	$73.11	5
   14	Zscaler	$152,041	$73.10	6
   15	Walgreens	$150,003	$72.12
   16	Cisco	$149,180	$71.72	17
   17	Amazon	$148,809	$71.54	347
   18	Scripps Health	$148,759	$71.52	2
   19	Costco Wholesale	$147,028	$70.69	4
   20	Leprino Foods	$146,297	$70.34

4. Writing an enterprise architect job description

   An enterprise architect job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. Below, you can find an example of an enterprise architect job description:

   Enterprise architect job description example

   Minimum qualifications:
   
   + Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Math, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
   
   + 6 years of experience performing customer-facing services focused on translating enterprise customer needs into cloud architectures and approaches.
   
   + Experience in developing solution architectures through system design techniques.
   
   + Ability to travel 20% of the time as needed.
   
   Preferred qualifications:
   
   + Experience implementing large-scale cloud or software projects in corporate environments.
   
   + Experience working with cloud architecture with a broad set of enterprise use cases.
   
   + Understanding of modern application migration and modernization approaches.
   
   + Excellent organizational, analytical, and influencing skills.
   
   As an Enterprise Architect, you will work with customers to transform their businesses through the use of Google Cloud Platform. You will also work cross-functionally to provide pre-business enterprise architecture support, solutions delivery/migration, and engineering expertise for Google's customers. You'll also help inform the scope of services, staffing, and timelines. In addition, you will advise customers on architecture best practices and architectural blueprints as the foundation for migration to Google Cloud. As part of the Professional Services team, you will work on customer requests for proposal (RFPs) and proposal processes, including partnering with Sales and Customer engineering counterparts to deliver technical architecture and services strategies. On this team, you'll propose, develop, and implement approaches as well as strive for execution consistency and repeatability for these engagements. Additionally, you will be part of a team of experts and work on a broad set of migration approaches to meet enterprise customer needs across all segments. In this role, you'll also represent and deliver best practices across the areas of infrastructure, application, data modernization, and more. You will collaborate cross-functionally within Google and support our services partner community. You will also develop knowledge in advising enterprise customers on migration approaches and work with a diverse set of internal and external stakeholders.
   
   Google Cloud accelerates organizations' ability to digitally transform their business with the best infrastructure, platform, industry solutions and expertise. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology - all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.
   
   + Recommend and document migration paths, integration strategies, and application architectures required to successfully implement complete solutions using best practices on Google Cloud.
   
   + Oversee delivery excellence, exceptional customer satisfaction, and accurate estimation of customer outcomes.
   
   + Work with prospects looking to move their enterprise IT estate to public/hybrid cloud, including providing enterprise architecture, direction, and recommended professional services to enable digital transformation.
   
   + Drive the capturing, developing, and sharing of best practices internally and externally to accelerate implementations.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find enterprise architects for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any enterprise architects they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level enterprise architects with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your enterprise architect job on Zippia to find and recruit enterprise architect candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   During your first interview to recruit enterprise architects, engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. During the following interview, you'll be able to go into more detail about the company, the position, and the responsibilities.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   Sometimes, it's not enough to interview enterprise architect candidates, so you can ask them to do a test project. If you are not a technical person and don't know what a test project should be, you can use these websites:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new enterprise architect

   Once you've found the enterprise architect candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new enterprise architect. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire an enterprise architect?