Principal IT Architect (Operational Technology)

Are you looking for an exciting job where you can put your skills and talents to work at a company you can feel proud to be a part of? Do you want a workplace that will challenge you and offer you opportunities to learn and grow? A position at Xcel Energy could be just what you’re looking for.

About the role

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.

Responsibilities

• OT System Expertise & Ownership
  • 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.
  • Develop platform roadmaps, not isolated projects, ensuring:
    • 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.
• Architecture & Design Collaboration
  • 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.
• Integration & SCADA Interfaces
  • Provide thought leadership and expertise in 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.
• Identity, Access & Cybersecurity Coordination
  • 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 solutions 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.
• Observability
  • Incorporate observability standards into OT platforms, ensuring alerting and reporting designs are in place and validated prior to go-live.
• Cross-Team Collaboration & Communication
  • Engage regularly in team-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.

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 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 in 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 ecosystems.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience providing architectural leadership for real-time SCADA systems.
• 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.
• Track record of raising the architectural maturity of teams through coaching, standards development, and design critique.

Pay

The anticipated starting base pay for this position is $156,100.00 to $195,000.00 per year.

Benefits

• Annual Incentive Program
• Medical/Pharmacy Plan
• Dental
• Vision
• Life Insurance
• Dependent Care Reimbursement Account
• Health Care Reimbursement 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.