Principal IT Architect (Operational Technology)

OT Subject Matter Expert (SME)

The OT Subject Matter Expert (SME) serves as a deep technical and functional authority for Xcel Energy's mission-critical OT platforms, specifically Electric Distribution, Electric Transmission, and Gas Distribution and Transmission. The role provides architectural continuity, operational insight, and cross-team coordination across design, integration, access, cybersecurity, and operational readiness activities.

This role acts as a bridge between architecture, operations, cybersecurity, identity, network/firewall, and vendor teams, ensuring OT systems are designed, integrated, and operated in a manner that meets reliability, regulatory, and security requirements.

Essential Responsibilities

• Provide deep subject matter expertise for ELECTRIC DISTRIBUTION, ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION, and Gas Transmission and Distribution environments across production, non-production, and regulated domains.
• Serve as a consultative, trusted advisor during system upgrades, integration failures, and production incidents affecting OT reliability or compliance.
• Maintain institutional knowledge of environment segmentation (CIP vs non-CIP, prod vs non-prod) and how those boundaries impact design and operations.
• Set defend and operationalize a Clear OT Strategy that enables safe, reliable grid operations while modernizing the technology stack under strict regulatory and cybersecurity constraints.
• The principal architect is required to develop platform roadmaps, not isolated projects.
• A Principal Architect ensures:
• OT data platforms evolve coherently.
• Capabilities are reused, not duplicated.
• Technical debt is retired deliberately, not deferred indefinitely.
• Projects deliver outcomes; platforms deliver long-term operational stability and cost control.
• Participate in and influence architecture and design discussions.
• Author Operational Technology standards that serve as the building blocks for OT project implementation.
• Ensure design decisions account for operational supportability and long-term maintainability, not just project delivery.
• Provide thought leadership and possess expertise of SCADA integrations, including:
• ICCP integrations between ELECTRIC DISTRIBUTION and ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION
• Real-time data flows between various OT platforms
• Validate that integration designs support real-time performance, data integrity, and operational resiliency.
• Act as a key OT SME in complex identity and access management (IAM) scenarios involving:
• User access provisioning for various OT Applications.
• Certificate-based authentication.
• Cross-domain trust and firewall constraints.
• Consult with IAM, Network/Firewall, Cybersecurity, and Vendor teams to drive design solution where OT and IT boundaries intersect.
• Partner across architecture, operations, cybersecurity, and IAM to define clear ownership for OT security integration issues that fall between teams.
• Incorporate observability standards into OT platforms, ensuring alerting and reporting designs are in place and validated prior to go-live.
• Engage regularly in Teams-based coordination with OT peers, architects, and operations leaders to clarify ambiguities (e.g., jump host usage, environment access patterns).
• Translate highly technical OT concepts into clear, actionable guidance for leadership and non-OT stakeholders.
• Encourage alignment across historically siloed teams by establishing shared understanding and common technical language.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Technology, Science, Business or related field, or 4 years of experience equivalent to the position.
• Ten years of related functional experience.
• Excellent communication skills, effective with varying organizational levels and skill sets.
• Excellent Relationship Management and collaboration skills, with a track record of working as one team cross-organizationally to drive innovation and business results.
• Strong architecture acumen across multiple domains including network, infrastructure, software, hosting models, applications, data, mobile platforms, and security.
• Strong knowledge of core aspects of enterprise architecture (Software, Hardware, Network, Integration, Data, hosting models, platform types, etc.).
• In-depth expertise in at least two areas of: Architecture competency such as SOA, TOGAF, BPM, Data Analytics, standards & governance, or enterprise architecture frameworks.
• Expertise on future technology trends within area of expertise.
• Expertise in architectural review and technology lifecycle management disciplines.
• Experience in a leading role in project delivery & solutions architecture.
• Experience successfully owning and driving strategic roadmap planning, and simplifying technology eco-systems.

Preferred Requirements

• Experience with Schneider Electric, ELECTRIC DISTRIBUTION, GE EMS/ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION, or equivalent platforms.
• Prior involvement in major OT upgrades or modernization initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to define, defend, and operationalize an enterprise-level OT architecture strategy aligned to utility reliability, regulatory, and cybersecurity constraints.
• Proven experience developing platform-based roadmaps (not project-centric solutions) across OT domains such as ADMS, EMS/DEMS, SCADA, DERMS, OMS, and OT data platforms.
• Experience providing architectural leadership for real-time integrations (e.g., SCADA, ICCP, telemetry, control flows) with an emphasis on performance, resilience, and determinism.
• Architecture Design Authority
• Security-Informed Architecture Thinking
• Track record of raising the architectural maturity of teams through coaching, standards development, and design critique.