About the Role
The Senior Solution Architect acts as the primary technical liaison between business system users and the software engineering & data tribe to build automated, high-impact business solutions. The role holder is responsible for the end-to-end journey of a feature from requirements elicitation and discovery to detailed solution design and technical oversight.
As a "hands-on" expert, you provide the architectural blueprint and technical counsel to ensure that business intent is accurately translated into scalable, resilient, and secure technical systems. You navigate ambiguous environments to propose how existing processes and systems can be evolved or integrated to meet new business demands, ensuring all designs align with the Group's enterprise architecture standards.
Key Accountabilities
Requirements Discovery & Solution Design
- Lead full business requirements discovery, including interviewing stakeholders and end-users to elicit, classify, and analyze complex requirements.
- Translate User Requirement Specifications into baseline Business Requirements Documents (BRD) and comprehensive technical design blueprints.
- Propose architectural changes or new system integrations to meet evolving business needs, maximizing existing system functionality before filling gaps with new platforms.
- Ensure mutual understanding and technical consensus on specifications between business stakeholders, Software Engineers, and Quality Assurance Engineers.
Technical Stewardship & Architectural Oversight
- Orchestrate technical alignment between design and engineering teams, acting as the "architectural bridge" to ensure business intent is accurately captured in designs and successfully realized through IT implementation.
- Serve as a "hands-on software architect," sharing deep development experience with the team to ensure the architecture is feasible from a practical development perspective.
- Oversee the evolution of solutions as per agreed architecture, providing technical guidance to engineers in the face of changing requirements or feedback.
- Provide expert knowledge and counsel to software engineers, ensuring adherence to best practices such as reusability, monitoring, performance, and security.
Governance & Quality Assurance
- Collaboratively develop test-driven business requirements and functional specifications with technical and testing team members.
- Promote proper release planning and guarantee adherence to change management governance and business priorities.
- Participate in the technical and functional evaluation of bids for new systems to ensure alignment with Group technology standards.
- Maintain a transparent prioritization process and foster strong working relationships across the Squad, Tribe, and external stakeholders.
Innovation & Continuous Improvement
- Participate in innovation initiatives to improve delivered products and explore the application of new technologies (e.g., Cloud Native, AI/ML) within the enterprise space.
- Identify internal system integrations needed to meet complex requirements across multiple business domains.
- Drive technical initiatives and process improvements without needing formal authority, navigating ambiguity to achieve Tribe objectives.
Principal Outputs for this role
- Business requirements accurately translated into comprehensive solution architectures and technical design specifications.
- End-to-end solution blueprints developed and approved in alignment with enterprise architecture principles and business objectives.
- Scalable, secure, resilient, and maintainable technology solutions successfully delivered across the Group.
- Systems integration designs developed to enable seamless interoperability across internal and external platforms.
- Technical governance standards consistently applied throughout the software development lifecycle.
- Architecture reviews conducted and technical recommendations provided to support delivery teams.
- Stakeholder requirements effectively captured, documented, and prioritized to support business transformation initiatives.
- Technical risks, dependencies, and architectural gaps identified and mitigated proactively.
- Evaluation and selection of technology solutions and vendors supported through technical due diligence and recommendations.
- Continuous improvement initiatives and innovation opportunities identified and incorporated into architecture roadmaps.
Qualifications & Competencies
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT, Software Engineering, or a related field.
- 5+ years’ experience in banking, fintech, or digital services (with at least 3 years specifically in software development, solution architecture, or cloud architecture).
- Certification in TOGAF and/or Public Clouds (AWS/Azure) is a distinct advantage.
- Prior experience in Agile ways of working and Scrum environments.
- Hands-on Development: Expert-level development skills in at least one core language (e.g., Java, Node.js, or .NET) and mastery of its associated web frameworks.
- Architectural Mastery: Deep knowledge of fundamental database concepts and the ability to picture end-to-end solutions from high-level design documents.
- Elicitation & Analysis: Proven ability to run user requirement workshops and capture complex requirements across multiple domains.
- Systems Integration: Exposure to multiple, diverse technologies and processing environments with a focus on enterprise-grade integration.
