Research IT Architect Job Provo area,Utah USA,IT/Tech

Overview

Why Work at BYU

As the flagship higher education institution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young University (BYU) strives to be among the exceptional universities in the world. At BYU, we are devoted to our faith and to our students. We take an active role in the University's Mission: "To assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life."

Our unique mission, deeply rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, provides countless ways to serve and make an impact. This, along with our remarkable culture of belonging, weekly devotionals, and endless opportunities for learning and growth—all situated within a beautiful and historic campus—make it hard to imagine a more inspiring place to work.

Brigham Young University strongly prefers to hire faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Role: Research IT Architect

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) - Academic Solutions provides technology and consulting services that support the academic and research missions of the university. Faculty and student researchers across campus have varied technology needs, including storage, computation, databases, SaaS platforms, integrations, data workflows, and related technical services.

The Research IT Architect helps faculty and their student research assistants identify practical, supportable technology solutions for research and academic needs. The employee meets with users to understand goals and constraints, translates those needs into technical requirements, recommends appropriate existing enterprise offerings when possible, and works with OIT teams to design and document solutions.

The position also helps OIT understand emerging research technology needs across campus, including recurring requests, common pain points, service gaps, and opportunities to improve university technology services.

The ideal candidate has broad IT experience, strong communication skills, sound technical judgment, and the ability to work with faculty and student researchers with varied technical backgrounds. This person should enjoy learning new technologies, clarifying ambiguous needs, designing practical solutions, and helping research and academic work move forward at the university.

Responsibilities

This position requires a dedicated individual who works well with faculty, student researchers, and technology teams. The employee must be proactive, organized, and able to move complex or ambiguous requests toward clear next steps. Responsibilities include the following:

Research and Academic Technology Architecture

Meet with faculty and student research assistants to understand research technology needs and related academic technology needs
Analyze business, technical, and workflow requirements
Identify appropriate solution approaches using existing enterprise offerings whenever possible
Design architectures for needs involving storage, computation, databases, SaaS platforms, integrations, and related services
Document architectures according to established standards, including architecture diagrams, requirements, constraints, assumptions, and relevant decision points
Define and communicate solution scope, dependencies, and implementation needs to appropriate OIT teams
Evaluate when a request can be satisfied with standard services and when a more specialized review or custom design effort may be necessary

Consultation, Coordination, and Customer Advocacy

Serve as a primary point of contact for faculty seeking guidance on research technology needs
Consult with users of varied technical abilities to clarify goals, constraints, and expectations
Direct users to appropriate existing services, support teams, and technical resources
Work with other OIT groups to communicate needs and facilitate progress toward implementation
Track solution progress to remain an effective advocate for the user and to help remove misunderstandings or barriers
Follow up periodically with users to determine whether implemented solutions continue to meet their needs
Manage expectations for niche, highly specialized, or infeasible requests, including communicating when requests cannot reasonably be…