Senior IT Architect (Integration)

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) is a leading energy provider and Fortune 500 company, dedicated to serving millions of electricity and natural gas customers across eight states: Minnesota, Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico and Texas. We make energy work better for our customers, helping them thrive every day.

That means always raising the bar - delivering better service and providing more reliable, resilient, and sustainable energy. Xcel Energy is a place where you’ll have opportunities to grow, expand your skills, and help lead the clean energy transition. We offer meaningful rewards, recognition, and support to help you build your career and make an impact - both on the job and beyond.

Most importantly, it means you’ll be joining a company that knows employees are the driving force behind its success and is committed to helping you be your best. Xcel Energy supports a hybrid work model to enable collaboration and flexibility. Many roles are expected to work onsite three days per week (Tuesday–Thursday); however, work location expectations vary based on role, team, and business needs.

Position Summary This Senior Integration Architect provides senior-level technical leadership for connecting AI capabilities with enterprise applications and trusted data. The role combines direct participation in complex project architecture designs with responsibility for helping set enterprise AI and integration direction.

It defines secure, scalable, reusable reference architectures that move project delivery toward the architectural north star. The architect owns end-to-end architectural decisions and integration approaches, evaluates solution alternatives and trade-offs, and guides teams from concept through implementation.

Working across Enterprise Architecture, engineering, security, data governance, and business teams, the architect establishes patterns and standards for APIs, events, orchestration, and governed data access that connect AI solutions to enterprise systems. The role translates project-specific designs into reusable enterprise patterns and implementation guidance.

The focus is secure enterprise AI integration, generative AI solution architecture, and reusable integration capabilities. The architect defines transition roadmaps, validates critical design decisions, and governs alignment between delivery and long-term enterprise direction. Modernization of the data estate enables trusted, governed data consumption for AI and connected business solutions.

Success requires independent technical judgment, influence across organizational boundaries, mentoring, and clear communication of architectural risks and trade-offs. Essential Responsibilities Architectural Operations: Review and approve projects and work efforts to ensure that they are compliant with architectural standards. Track and manage exceptions to standards. Continuously improve operational processes.

Assess, report, and make recommendations to eliminate operational risk related to technology or architecture. Technical Expertise: Provide consultation and direction to delivery and operational teams on optimal architecture for respective solutions. Maintain state-of-the-art expertise of enterprise architecture technologies, frameworks, and industry innovations.

Leadership: Lead work cross-organizationally through coaching and feedback, and through significant interactions and influence with leaders. Govern work efforts to ensure alignment with reference architecture, IT strategy and policy. Collaborate cross-organizationally to influence alignment on and adoption of enterprise architecture standards.

Planning and Strategy: Participate in creation and renewal of an overarching IT strategy. Develop and enforce reference architecture standards that are aligned with IT strategies and principles. Contribute to architecture road maps and provide input to technology roadmaps. Ensure the domain IT Strategy align with Enterprise Architecture framework and standards.

Minimum Requirements Bachelor's degree in technology, science, business or related field, or 4 years of experience equivalent to the position. 10 years of related functional experience. Architecture acumen across multiple domains including network, infrastructure, software, hosting models, mobile platforms, and security.

Exposure to diverse systems, technologies and processing environments in a large corporate setting. Project solution architecture experience. General knowledge of core aspects of enterprise architecture (Software, Hardware, Network, Integration, Data, hosting models, platform types, etc.). Strong analytical, problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.

Extensive knowledge of future technology trends within area of expertise. Demonstrated leadership on technical aspects of large scale projects. 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.

Preferred Requirements Demonstrated ability to architect end-to-end AI and generative AI solutions that integrate enterprise data and systems. Experience defining how agents access enterprise capabilities through governed APIs and tools, including Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations, together with retrieval-augmented generation, vector search, grounding, orchestration, and controlled access.

Deep expertise in API-based, event-driven, messaging, streaming, and orchestration patterns for connecting AI capabilities with enterprise applications and data, including explicit evaluation of latency, consistency, resilience, security, and cost trade-offs. Demonstrated senior-level accountability for complex AI and enterprise integration architecture across multiple business domains.

Experience aligning project-level solution designs with enterprise target-state architectures and modernization roadmaps. Proven ability to define and drive adoption of AI and integration reference architectures, reusable patterns, architecture decision records, and implementation guidance that delivery teams can apply consistently.

Strong architecture experience designing cloud and hybrid integration solutions across enterprise applications, AI services, and data platforms, with clear service boundaries, interface contracts, and operational ownership.

Experience defining responsible AI and security controls within integrated solutions, including privacy, identity and access controls, sensitive-data protection, observability, auditability, and evaluation criteria for AI solution behavior.

Experience defining governed data-access and consumption patterns for AI, including discoverable data products, data contracts, metadata, lineage, quality expectations, and self-service access.

Ability to assess AI and integration readiness, identify technical debt and unnecessary duplication, and define pragmatic transition architectures and phased modernization plans that balance project delivery with enterprise direction.

Hands-on technical depth to validate AI and integration architecture decisions through prototypes, integration specifications, design reviews, and troubleshooting, with clear criteria for moving from proof of concept to production and clear engineering accountability.

Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders, communicate technical trade-offs in business terms, resolve cross-domain design issues, and mentor architects and engineers without relying on direct reporting authority.

Experience defining measurable AI and integration architecture outcomes for solution quality, reuse, reliability, performance, security, and cost, and using those outcomes to guide continuous improvement. Experience in utilities or similarly complex, regulated enterprises with operationally critical systems and diverse legacy and modern technology environments.

Our culture is grounded in shared values and employee commitments that guide how we work, support one another, and grow together.

Our Values Connected, Committed, Trustworthy, Safe Our Employee Commitments Work that makes a difference A team you can count of Opportunities to grow Rewards that help you thrive Xcel Energy provides job applicants reasonable accommodations for disabilities throughout the application process.

If you are in need of an accommodation to complete the application process, now or at any time in the future, please complete the Applicant Accommodation Request Form .

Non-Bargaining The anticipated starting base pay for this position is: $112,200.00 to $165,000.00 per year This position is eligible for the following benefits: Annual Incentive Program, Medical/Pharmacy Plan, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account, Health Care Flexible Spending Account, Health Savings Account (HSA) (if enrolled in eligible health plan), Limited-Purpose FSA (if enrolled in eligible health plan and HSA), Transportation Reimbursement Account, Short-term disability (STD), Long-term disability (LTD), Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Fitness Center Reimbursement (if enrolled in eligible health plan), Tuition reimbursement, Transit programs, Employee recognition program, Pension, 401(k) plan, Paid time off (PTO), Holidays, Volunteer Paid Time Off (VPTO), Parental Leave Benefit plans are subject to change and Xcel Energy has the right to end, suspend, or amend any of its plans, at any time, in whole or in part.

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