Applications Architect for Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Austin, Tx

Title: Applications Architect
Solicitation: 304FM202705
Agency:Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts 
Location:LBJ State Office Building, 111 E. 17th Street, Austin, Texas 78711
Telework Policy: 100% Remote

SCOPE OF SERVICES.

Services Overview. The selected Vendor's Candidate will be part of CPA's Fiscal Management Statewide Fiscal Systems team, supporting the Centralized Accounting and Payroll/Personnel System (CAPPS) Program. The CAPPS Program for this engagement comprises the following components: HR/Payroll (inclusive of Recruit functionality), Financials, STARR, and all ancillary systems. The selected Vendor's Candidate must be adaptable and able to learn and integrate new systems and platforms as needed, such as CGI Advantage.

Annual Professional Training Requirement. In addition to other CPA training requirements, the following professional training requirement applies on an annual basis during the CPA Contract Term, including each renewal term, under the CPA Contract resulting from this solicitation:

• For no compensation from CPA, the selected Vendor's Candidate shall be required to complete a minimum of ten (10) hours of professional training in a relevant area of expertise associated with the Services provided under the CPA Contract. 
• The professional training, as determined by the Vendor and/or the selected Vendor's Candidate, shall be conducted and completed by the selected Vendor's Candidate on personal time. If the professional training is intended to be conducted during the CPA-approved work schedule, the selected Vendor's Candidate must coordinate the associated time off with the CPA Supervising Manager, as applicable. 
• The Vendor and/or the selected Vendor's Candidate shall be fully responsible for all associated costs, including but not limited to tuition, materials, conference fees, and/or travel expenses. CPA will not approve or make payment for any hours associated with the professional training requirement. 
• By July 31st of each CPA Contract Term, the Vendor shall provide the CPA Contract Manager with an annual professional training report, documenting the completed professional training hours and courses.

Position Requirements. The CPA Work includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Performing highly advanced (senior-level) consultative services and technical assistance work related to supporting the CAPPS Program.
• Responsible for the CAPPS Program Vision and Strategy, which includes but is not limited to:
• Defining and evolving the product’s long‑term strategy, ensuring it aligns with the State of Texas goals and technical realities.
• Translating high-level business objectives into clear technical product roadmaps. Prioritize features based on customer value, technical feasibility, and team capacity.
• Partnering closely with our Managed Services vendor to shape architecture, evaluate technical trade‑offs, and ensure high-quality implementation.
• Understanding system design, APIs, data flows, and platform constraints well enough to make informed decisions.
• Identifying technical risks, dependencies, and scalability considerations early.
• Communicating product decisions and rationale clearly across teams.
• Serving as the bridging voice between business needs and technical execution.
• Ensuring that the long-term roadmap for systems, data, and platforms supports CPA business goals as the application service provider for the CAPPS Program.
• Ensuring that guidelines for solution designs, integration patterns, security, cloud usage, and technical best practices are followed.
• Reviewing proposed solutions and ensuring they fit the enterprise ecosystem and prevent duplication or unnecessary complexities.
• Providing architectural leadership for digital transformation, cloud migrations, modernization, and large-scale projects as directed by the CAPPS Product Manager.
• Working with our Managed Services vendor to identify architectural risks such as scalability issues, integration and weaknesses, and legacy system constraints.
• Working with functional analysts, solution architects, developers, security teams, and business to ensure a cohesive approach.
• Defining and evolving the product’s long‑term strategy, ensuring it aligns with the State of Texas goals and technical realities.
• Translating high-level business objectives into clear technical product roadmaps. Prioritize features based on customer value, technical feasibility, and team capacity.
• Partnering closely with our Managed Services vendor to shape architecture, evaluate technical trade‑offs, and ensure high-quality implementation.
• Understanding system design, APIs, data flows, and platform constraints well enough to make informed decisions.
• Identifying technical risks, dependencies, and scalability considerations early.
• Communicating product decisions and rationale clearly across teams.
• Serving as the bridging voice between business needs and technical execution.
• Maintaining standards for security, performance, compliance, and architecture. Ensuring technical risks are identified and managed responsibly. 
• Responsible for ensuring that all digital products and content meet WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards. This includes maintaining perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust experiences for all users, regularly reviewing content for compliance, and implementing updates or remediation whenever accessibility issues are identified.
• Assisting with all applicable contract management oversight responsibilities associated with the CAPPS Program, including, but not limited to:
• Assisting and participating in the annual IT control audits related to the CAPPS Central applications.
• Ensuring contract data security, user permissions, audit trails, and compliance with organizational and regulatory standards.
• Performing technical reviews of contract templates, metadata structures, workflows, and automation rules to ensure accuracy and usability.
• Working closely with Fiscal Management’s contract managers to identify gaps and optimize contract processes.
• Overseeing and/or assisting with technical oversight and support related to, but not limited to, SLAs, system monitoring, environment analysis, hardware/software evaluation, network troubleshooting, migration paths, coding standards, security standards, compare reports, application change management review, and batch scheduling review.
• Maintaining documentation related to architecture, configuration, integrations, and change management.
• Supporting reporting and analytics for contract KPIs, compliance metrics, and lifecycle performance.
• Reviewing and suggesting approval for all assigned Technical Deliverables related to CAPPS Architecture, CAPPS System Development Lifecycle, Disaster Recovery, CAPPS Security Plans (SSP), and all CAPPS related Technology plans related to CAPPS applications currently and planning for the future.
• Planning and coordinating various technical upgrades (e.g., PeopleSoft image, PeopleSoft Fluid, PeopleTools, other software publisher upgrades, etc.).
• Participating as a technical advisor during the procurement cycle for certain CPA-issued procurements for products or services associated with CPA’s CAPPS Program. Activities may include, but are not limited to, the following: research of products and services, planning activities, drafting and reviewing documents for use in solicitations, providing technical input for purposes of developing guidelines for evaluating the developed technical specifications, and serving as a technical advisor providing input to CPA’s teams during the evaluation and negotiation phases.

Specialty Skill Sets:

• Serve as a subject matter expert associated with user role Segregation of Duties (SOD) in CAPPS multi-tenant software applications.
• Serve as a subject matter expert and perform Delegated Administration Level 3 for the Texas Digital Identity Services (TDIS).
• Serve as the subject matter expert and be able to implement, support, and maintain products offered by PathLock that include: User Access Review (UAR),
• Single Sign-On (SSO), Data Masking and A360.

Required/Preferred Skill Sets:

Years	Required/Preferred	Experience
12	Required	Extensive Texas public sector experience, directly working for or supporting a Texas state government agency
12	Required	Extensive experience performing technical activities in support of CPA application systems
12	Required	Extensive experience creating and managing a strategic roadmap by combining strong planning skills, technical insight, and effective cross functional communication
10	Required	Experience preparing materials for and conducting executive-level presentations
10	Required	Experience performing technical project management activities in support of CPA’s CAPPS program
10	Required	Experience in interpreting contractual language and integrating it into daily workflows, while consistently holding vendors accountable to contractual requirements
10	Required	Extensive knowledge of/experience with data integration, data quality, and SDLC processes and methodologies
10	Required	Experience in IT security and control practices
10	Required	Technical experience with PeopleSoft FSCM or HCM 9.2, PeopleTools, Peoplecode, Application Designer, SQL, PS Query, SQR, Application Engine and Oracle 11 or higher
10	Required	Experience with CAPPS Central production and deployment technical support activities for more than 100 agencies and 5 Hub instances.
8	Required	Experience with IT service desk functions, knowledge of ITIL framework methodologies and processes.
5	Required	Experience with user role segregation of duties (SoD) in multi-tenant software applications.
2	Required	Experience serving in a technical product role with responsibility for managing outsourced technical teams and overseeing a Managed Services provider
10	Preferred	Experience with software and hardware management industry best practices
10	Preferred	Experience with CPA’s legacy Statewide Financial Systems production support activities
10	Preferred	Experience developing technical specifications to support IT procurements