Service Portfolio Architect

Job Description Summary:

The Service Portfolio Architect is a senior individual contributor within Infrastructure Operations & Architecture (IO&A), reporting to the Director, Technology Architecture, Design & Delivery. This role serves as the service owner for an assigned portfolio of enterprise technology services. The role ensures each service remains aligned with business priorities, enterprise architecture standards, cybersecurity requirements, operational support models, and the long-term technology roadmap.

This role is responsible for service strategy, roadmap development, lifecycle planning, technology currency, standards alignment, operational readiness, modernization, and the successful transition of new capabilities into production support. The Service Portfolio Architect partners with the Director, Technology Architecture, Design & Delivery; Design & Delivery Engineers; Technology Operations; Service Delivery Managers; Cybersecurity; project delivery teams; vendors; and Managed Services Partners to ensure services are designed, delivered, transitioned, and continuously improved in a supportable and sustainable manner.

The Service Portfolio Architect operates in a consulted and advisory capacity for day-to-day operational matters. Accountability and responsibility for operational execution, incident management, service restoration, SLA performance, managed services partner performance, and ongoing support delivery reside with the Director, Technology Operations and the Service Delivery Managers. The Service Portfolio Architect provides technical guidance, lifecycle ownership, architectural direction, and service improvement leadership to support those operational functions.

Purpose

Provide service ownership, lifecycle stewardship, architecture alignment, and operational-readiness leadership for assigned technology service portfolios so IO&A can deliver enterprise services that are secure, resilient, scalable, supportable, and aligned with business and technology strategy.

Mission

Enable IO&A to mature from project-centric technology delivery to service-oriented lifecycle management by defining service direction, governing technical standards, ensuring operational readiness, driving modernization, and continuously improving the long-term health, value, and sustainability of assigned enterprise technology services.

Job Description:

Key Responsibilities

1) Own Assigned Service Portfolios and Lifecycle Strategy

· Serve as the service owner for an assigned portfolio of enterprise technology services across IO&A domains such as network, systems, cloud, identity, infrastructure protection, monitoring, storage, backup, database, or related technology platforms.

· Develop and maintain service strategies, roadmaps, lifecycle plans, modernization priorities, and retirement recommendations aligned to business objectives, architecture standards, cybersecurity requirements, and enterprise technology direction.

· Identify technical debt, lifecycle risk, platform currency concerns, supportability gaps, service rationalization opportunities, and future investment needs across assigned service portfolios.

2) Govern Service Architecture, Standards, and Technical Direction

· Define and maintain service architecture standards, design principles, approved patterns, technical reference materials, and roadmap guidance for assigned portfolios.

· Participate in Architecture Review Board (ARB) activities and related governance processes to evaluate proposed solutions, technology changes, and design decisions for strategic alignment and operational sustainability.

· Ensure assigned services align with approved technology standards, cybersecurity expectations, support model requirements, and target-state architecture objectives.

3) Lead Operational Readiness and Service Transition

· Lead operational readiness planning for new technologies, platforms, enhancements, and capabilities transitioning from design and delivery into production support.

· Define required support artifacts including documentation, monitoring, alerting, runbooks, standard operating procedures, recovery expectations, escalation paths, knowledge transfer, and support model validation.

· Partner with Design & Delivery Engineers, project teams, Technology Operations, Service Delivery Managers, and Managed Services Partners to ensure solutions are supportable before operational handoff.

4) Partner with Service Delivery Managers in a Consulted Capacity

· Serve as the primary technical and architectural advisor to Service Delivery Managers for assigned service portfolios.

· Provide consultation on service health trends, technical risks, recurring issues, roadmap alignment, lifecycle implications, and improvement opportunities.

· Support operational governance, service reviews, and planning discussions while maintaining clear separation between lifecycle ownership and operational execution accountability.

5) Support Major Incident, Problem, and Service Recovery Activities

· Provide senior technical consultation during major incidents, recurring service disruptions, complex problem investigations, and systemic service issues impacting assigned portfolios.

· Assist Service Delivery Managers, Technology Operations, Managed Services Partners, and engineering resources with architectural analysis, root-cause themes, corrective action planning, and long-term remediation recommendations.

· Ensure operational lessons learned are reflected in service roadmaps, standards, documentation, support models, design patterns, and modernization priorities.

6) Drive Continuous Service Evolution and Modernization

· Continuously evaluate assigned services for opportunities to improve resiliency, security, scalability, observability, automation, recoverability, operational efficiency, and user experience.

· Develop modernization recommendations, business cases, roadmap inputs, and service improvement proposals that reduce risk, simplify operations, advance strategic platforms, and reinforce the target operating model.

· Partner with Cybersecurity, Technology Operations, Architecture, Design & Delivery Engineers, business stakeholders, vendors, and Managed Services Partners to prioritize and execute service evolution initiatives.

7) Collaborate with Design & Delivery Engineers and Project Teams

· Provide service context, technical standards, operational requirements, target-state direction, and lifecycle expectations to Design & Delivery Engineers responsible for configuration, build, implementation, and technical delivery activities.

· Ensure project and engineering delivery efforts align with assigned service roadmaps, approved architecture patterns, operational readiness requirements, and supportability expectations.

· Contribute to design reviews, delivery planning, solution acceptance, and transition activities so new capabilities are delivered with clear ownership, documentation, and support paths.

8) Maintain Service Documentation, Roadmaps, and Decision Artifacts

· Maintain service roadmaps, lifecycle registers, standards documentation, technical decision records, service blueprints, operational readiness checklists, transition artifacts, and related service ownership materials.

· Ensure service documentation is current, accessible, and sufficiently detailed to support governance, operational readiness, support transition, auditability, and continuous improvement.

· Provide leadership-ready summaries, roadmap updates, risk narratives, and improvement recommendations for IO&A planning, governance, operating reviews, and investment discussions.

9) Reinforce Accountability Boundaries Between Architecture and Operations

· Operate as the accountable owner for service strategy, lifecycle management, architecture alignment, operational readiness, and modernization of assigned services.

· Operate in a consulted capacity for day-to-day operational matters, including active incidents, service restoration, ticket management, SLA performance, partner performance, and support execution.

· Ensure Service Delivery Managers remain responsible and accountable for operational ownership while receiving clear technical guidance, service context, and lifecycle direction from the Service Portfolio Architect.

Behavorial Expectations (How this role operates)

· Think like a service owner. Manage assigned services as long-term enterprise capabilities with clear strategy, lifecycle plans, standards, ownership expectations, and measurable outcomes.

· Respect operational accountability. Support Technology Operations and Service Delivery Managers with technical expertise while avoiding confusion around ownership of day-to-day operations, incident response, SLA performance, or managed services partner execution.

· Design for supportability. Ensure solutions are built with documentation, monitoring, recovery, escalation, maintainability, and operational handoff requirements considered from the beginning.

· Lead through influence. Guide decisions through technical credibility, service context, architectural judgment, and strong relationships rather than direct management authority.

· Turn issues into improvement. Use incidents, recurring problems, service trends, and lifecycle risks as inputs to roadmap updates, modernization plans, standards improvement, and support-model refinement.

· Communicate clearly and practically. Translate complex technical, architectural, and lifecycle topics into concise recommendations that Technology Operations, leadership, vendors, and business stakeholders can understand and act on.

· Maintain future-state discipline. Promote adoption of strategic platforms, consistent operating practices, and clear alignment to IO&A governance, architecture standards, and business priorities.

Key Deliverables

· Assigned service portfolio strategies, multi-year roadmaps, lifecycle plans, modernization priorities, and retirement recommendations.

· Service standards, architecture guidance, approved design patterns, technical reference materials, and service blueprints for assigned portfolios.

· Operational readiness criteria, support model requirements, transition checklists, knowledge transfer expectations, runbook requirements, and production readiness inputs.

· Service lifecycle risk assessments covering technical debt, platform currency, supportability gaps, resilience concerns, cybersecurity alignment, and modernization needs.

· Consultative inputs to Service Delivery Managers for service reviews, recurring issue analysis, major incident follow-up, problem management themes, and improvement planning.

· Roadmap recommendations, business cases, and modernization proposals that improve resilience, security, automation, observability, scalability, and operational sustainability.

· Updated service documentation, decision records, lifecycle registers, standards artifacts, transition materials, and leadership-ready service status summaries.

· Architecture governance inputs for ARB, technology standards reviews, design reviews, solution acceptance, and operational readiness checkpoints.

· Clear documentation of responsibility boundaries between Service Portfolio Architecture, Design & Delivery Engineering, Technology Operations, Service Delivery Management, and Managed Services Partners.

Required Qualifications

· 8+ years of progressive experience in infrastructure engineering, platform engineering, enterprise architecture, solution architecture, technology operations, service management, or related enterprise technology roles.

· Demonstrated experience owning or influencing technology platforms, infrastructure services, or enterprise capabilities across strategy, design, implementation, support transition, lifecycle management, and modernization.

· Strong working knowledge of enterprise infrastructure domains such as network, systems/server, storage, backup, monitoring, identity and access management, cloud platforms, database platforms, cybersecurity operations, or enterprise IT service delivery.

· Experience defining service standards, roadmaps, lifecycle plans, reference architectures, operational readiness requirements, or technology modernization strategies.

· Practical understanding of ITSM practices including incident, request, change, problem, service transition, operational readiness, SLA/KPI concepts, support models, and managed services operating models.

· Experience partnering with operations teams, delivery teams, cybersecurity, vendors, managed services partners, and business stakeholders to improve service outcomes.

· Ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear recommendations, service direction, roadmap priorities, and leadership-ready communication.

· Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications

· Experience operating in a modern technology organization supported by a Managed Services Partner, including clear separation of service ownership, service management, engineering delivery, and operational execution responsibilities.

· Experience participating in Architecture Review Board (ARB), technology standards governance, enterprise architecture review, technical design review, or production readiness processes.

· Experience with platforms and domains relevant to IO&A such as cloud hosting, network services, identity and access management, infrastructure protection, monitoring/event management, compute, storage, backup, disaster recovery, database, or enterprise infrastructure modernization.

· Familiarity with ITIL Foundation, continual improvement, problem management, service ownership, service transition, technology lifecycle management, or operational excellence methods.

· Experience developing roadmaps, business cases, decision records, service blueprints, technical standards, runbook requirements, transition plans, or leadership-facing technology recommendations.

· Experience supporting modernization initiatives such as platform consolidation, legacy technology retirement, cloud adoption, automation, observability improvement, resilience enhancement, or security uplift.

· Working knowledge of enterprise tools such as ServiceNow, Asana, Microsoft 365, Power BI, SharePoint, Teams, Azure, or related service management, collaboration, cloud, and reporting platforms.

· Ability to influence across teams without direct authority and build trusted partnerships with Architecture, Design & Delivery, Technology Operations, Service Delivery Managers, Cybersecurity, vendors, and Managed Services Partners.

This position is an exempt position. The annualized base pay range for this role is expected to be between $165,000-$195,000 base salary compensation range. Actual base pay may vary based on factors including, but not limited to, experience, subject matter expertise, geographic location where work will be performed, and the applicant’s skill set. The base pay is just one component of the total compensation package. Other rewards may include an annual cash bonus and a comprehensive benefits package, including but not limited to medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and 401(k). Please note that the job title is subject to change based on the selected candidate’s experience and education.

Focus is a leading financial services firm comprised of integrated wealth management, family office, and business management services. Blending deep expertise and expansive resources with a boutique, client-first fiduciary philosophy, Focus helps individuals, families, and institutions navigate complex financial situations with highly personalized solutions tailored to their unique needs. To learn more about Focus, visit www.focusfinancialpartners.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.

EEO Statement: Focus is an equal opportunity employer and bases its employment decisions on the employee or candidate’s skillset, and without regard to an employee or candidate’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state and/or federal law.

Focus complies with federal and state disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact careers@focuspartners.com

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Focus, a business division of Focus Financial Partners, brings together businesses across Wealth, Business Management, Family Office, and International. Collectively, these firms—spanning the U.S., Canada, and Australia—deliver a broad spectrum of financial advice solutions to individuals, families, and institutions.

Our vision is clear: to be the leading fiduciary advice company in the world. For clients, that means an experience built around their needs. For advisors, it means access to the resources, tools, and capabilities typically available only at the largest global institutions.

We believe talent is the key to realizing this vision. That’s why we invest in our people, support their growth, and create meaningful opportunities for development at every stage of their careers.