How to hire a lead enterprise architect

How to hire a lead enterprise architect, step by step

Here's a step-by-step lead 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 a lead enterprise architect job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new lead enterprise architect
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a lead enterprise architect do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your lead enterprise architect job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a lead enterprise architect for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

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

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a lead enterprise architect to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a lead enterprise architect that fits the bill.

   This list shows salaries for various types of lead enterprise architects.

   Type of Lead Enterprise Architect	Description	Hourly rate
   Lead Enterprise Architect		$46-86
   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
   Architect	Architects are licensed professionals who specialize in art and science of design, building constructions, and structures. They play a vital role in the construction and not only responsible for the appearance but also the safety of users... Show more	$25-65

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Infrastructure
   • Governance
   • Cloud
   • Enterprise Architecture
   • Project Management
   • Portfolio
   • SAN
   • Azure
   • Roadmap
   • API
   • Emerging Technologies
   • Visualization
   • Business Process
   • Windows

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Lead efforts to build enterprise SOA platform using web services and MQ.
   • Lead development of technical training curriculum for J2EE products, standards, SOA reuse.
   • Create risk mitigation plans and manage production assessment checks to validate core infrastructure readiness of enterprise network and security appliances.
   • Develop and implement risk strategy, risk governance, risk management, risk quantification and inter-dependencies to achieve desire company strategy.
   • Maintain Java object model using TogetherJ and UML.
   • Meet with upper management to ensure platforms and systems are cloud ready.

   More lead enterprise architect duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your lead enterprise architect job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A lead enterprise architect salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a lead enterprise architect in South Carolina may be lower than in California, and an entry-level lead enterprise architect usually earns less than a senior-level lead enterprise architect. Additionally, a lead enterprise architect with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average lead enterprise architect salary

   $132,965yearly

   $63.93 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level lead enterprise architect salary

   $97,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 16, 2025

   Average lead enterprise architect salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$163,120	$78
   2	Washington	$153,083	$74
   3	District of Columbia	$148,051	$71
   4	Nevada	$146,074	$70
   5	Wisconsin	$141,421	$68
   6	Florida	$138,944	$67
   7	Connecticut	$136,716	$66
   8	Oregon	$135,977	$65
   9	Massachusetts	$135,584	$65
   10	New York	$132,948	$64
   11	Hawaii	$131,764	$63
   12	Georgia	$131,623	$63
   13	Delaware	$130,293	$63
   14	North Carolina	$126,547	$61
   15	Alabama	$124,415	$60
   16	Texas	$123,977	$60
   17	Louisiana	$123,891	$60
   18	Illinois	$120,956	$58
   19	Missouri	$120,441	$58
   20	Ohio	$118,966	$57

   Average lead enterprise architect salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Apple	$173,154	$83.25	66
   2	Lowe's Companies	$169,073	$81.29	9
   3	Nike	$164,054	$78.87
   4	Citi	$152,442	$73.29	8
   5	Under Armour	$151,696	$72.93	111
   6	Starbucks	$151,691	$72.93	3
   7	Occidental Petroleum	$151,570	$72.87
   8	Navistar	$150,880	$72.54
   9	Mars	$148,410	$71.35
   10	ViacomCBS	$148,126	$71.21
   11	JPMorgan Chase & Co.	$147,991	$71.15	149
   12	Intel	$145,431	$69.92	46
   13	Tennant	$145,420	$69.91
   14	The Travelers Companies	$145,385	$69.90	30
   15	J.P. Morgan	$144,385	$69.42
   16	DonRiver	$143,534	$69.01
   17	Honeywell	$143,477	$68.98	6
   18	Enpro	$143,284	$68.89
   19	Nokia	$142,983	$68.74	22
   20	JFrog	$142,849	$68.68	6

4. Writing a lead enterprise architect job description

   A good lead enterprise architect job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a lead enterprise architect job description:

   Lead enterprise architect job description example

   - Support to a DevSecOps Pipeline for deployment into SC2S LEAP environment.

   Support to Certification and Accreditation Activities -- Use Risk Management Framework (RMF) or FedRAMP ATO experience to assess organizational progress against existing security strategies, plans, or directives and make recommendations for improvement.

   - Support to 1MDTF’s Information Assurance (IA) boundary - and devices within the domain.

   Support to the 1MDTF JADC2 experimentation process in enabling equipment on to MDTF technology infrastructure.

   BS 12-15, MS 10-13. Phd 10+ Will consider: Edu/Exp: HS 16+ Years, BA/BS 10+ Years, or MA/MS 8+ Years.

   Position requires a Cloud Engineering background:

   - Experience in DevSecOps, IAC, K8S/Docker, AWS EC2/S3/IAM, networking, routing, with a working knowledge of POSIX Shell, BASH, Python.

   - Key for the cloud engineer will be the knowledge and experience to build an environment that consists of several VMs on AWS.

   - Iterate with customers on requirements.

   - Manage user/customer (data scientists) access.

   - Establish and maintain the containerized environment with an entry mechanism, a notebook environment (like JupyterHub), a script server, and persistence using AWS S3.

   - Ability to maintain the network route and programmatically switch for different data scraping tasks.

   Prefer DoD 8570 IAT Level II.

   Work Location: on-site inside Multi-Domain Task Force HQs, Building 3360, and/or Intelligence Operations Facility (Building 9111) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA.

   Clearance; Active TS//SCI clearance

   Work schedule: Monday-Friday, from 8 am – 5 pm. Surge support or extended work week may be authorized as required

   Peraton drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world’s leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted and highly differentiated national security solutions and technologies that keep people safe and secure. Peraton serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies across the intelligence, space, cyber, defense, civilian, health, and state and local markets. Every day, our employees do the can’t be done, solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers.

   An Equal Opportunity Employer including Disability/Veteran.

   Colorado Salary Minimum: $96,100
   Colorado Salary Maximum: $233,300
   
   The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position, and is just one component of Peraton's total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include annual bonuses, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition, Peraton provides a variety of benefits to employees.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right lead enterprise architect for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your lead enterprise architect job on Zippia to find and attract quality lead enterprise architect candidates.
   • Use niche websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit lead enterprise architects, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   If your interviews with lead enterprise architect applicants aren't enough to make a decision, you should also consider including a test project. These are often the best, most straightforward, and least bias-prone ways of determining who will likely succeed in the role. If you don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • 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 lead enterprise architect

   Once you've found the lead 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.

   You should also follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that you've filled the position.

   To prepare for the new lead enterprise architect first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

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 a lead enterprise architect?