Discontinuous reception (DRX) alignment techniques for dual-connectivity architectures are described. In one embodiment, for example, user equipment (UE) may comprise one or more radio frequency (RF) transceivers, one or more RF antennas, and logic, and logic at least a portion of which is in hardware. The logic receives a radio resource control (RRC) configuration information message containing a small cell RRC configuration information element (IE). The small cell RRC configuration IE contains a small cell discontinuous reception (DRX) configuration IE comprising one or more inter-cell-coordinated small cell DRX parameters. The logic determines a start time for a small cell DRX cycle based on at least one of the one or more inter-cell-coordinated small cell DRX parameters and initiates the small cell DRX cycle at the determined start time. Other embodiments are described and claimed.