Chief Architect at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• Leverage deep and broad skills as well as understanding of the organization, leading industry practice and group strategy to shape the strategic architecture while providing strong leadership of the Design and Delivery of  solutions across a large and diverse area comprised of several portfolios or a full business unit to achieve a large positive impact upon the organization, customers and colleagues (which will be felt well into the future).

Job Description

Architecture

•  Contributes to Group Strategy and carries the ‘one stop shop’ accountability for the technology roadmap that achieves and enables that Strategy across the business unit in which they operate.
•  Lead the evolution of the overall architecture of their business unit (across business and technical domains)
•  Works collaboratively across multiple business units and functions to ensure that their architectures (current and future) are coherent, stable, scalable, modular and fit for purpose while delivering optimal customer and colleague experiences.
•  Accomplished practitioner and teacher of several of the following: design thinking, evolutionary architectures, DevOps, robust engineering practices, data driven techniques and most-importantly customer centric practices. Able to teach others to use these to craft fit-for purpose and innovative solutions.
•  Contributes to, co-evolves and co-curates Absa’s architecture principles and practices and ensures that all associated technology solutions & roadmaps are true to these.
•  In collaboration with the CTO, explore new technologies & lead the technology innovation agenda for a specific business as it relates to our business strategy.
•  Experienced solver of wicked problems under a cohesive and integrated approach which spans customers, colleagues, process & technology.
•  Understand the existing architectural landscape & associated business and technology solutions and the degree of alignment with strategy.
•  Craft solutions and roadmaps to evolve this landscape towards Absa’s strategic objectives in a commercially viable and efficient fashion.
•  Work in a leadership role in the delivery of these solutions and roadmaps.
•  Work in partnership with the CIOs, CTO, CSO and risk teams (where applicable)
•  Chairs a business unit architecture council and is accountable approver for all architectures within that domain. Has a voting membership in the Group Architecture Council (the highest architecture forum in Absa).
•  Understand relevant Group initiatives and integrate these with the specific business strategic initiatives, complement them or challenge them where appropriate.
•  Manage / oversee solution implementation & quality across Dev Teams e.g. cross business solution reviews, code reviews, testing etc.
•  Assume one stop shop accountability for the efficient & effective solution delivery across businesses who are interdependent with & or dependent on delivery of your business area (by maintaining the principles above or ensuring provisioning with limited / no queuing)
•  Use Data-driven techniques as a tool to drive business improvement which may entail defining data requirements, ensure data availability & monitor & leverage data & analytics to identify opportunities for improvement across the technology area for a business (customer, usage, performance, quality etc.)
•  Ensure the appropriate resourcing (Right People, Right Fit Capabilities, Right Roles, Right Time) of all solution design & implementation teams (Run & Build) across the business
•  Stay ahead of the curve on new technology & associated capabilities & leverage new found knowledge and skill to influence the architectural direction of the broader organization (bank) as well as the business with a focus on improving service delivery to customers & sustainable & profitable business operations for the organization. Scaled learning is a foundational principle of this.

Delivery management for business wide initiatives led by Architecture teams (where there is a specific product / service you manage)

•  With fluency in the deployment of agile methodologies, resource & manage the appropriate number and nature (skill & capability) of squad-based teams to execute on both Run & Change elements of delivery
•  Work in collaboration with transformation & change teams for effective resourcing and delivery management of various programmes at all levels (SI, BU etc.)
•  Ensure agile practices are implemented and sustained for effective delivery to business e.g. RETRO’s etc.
•  Positively & proactively manage product owner relationships
•  Proactively engage with & partner CTO, CSO, SE, Risk and broader enablement functions to drive alignment & leading practice in technology design & deployment
•  Leave things better than you found them!

People

•  Set & Cascade Architectural direction across technology teams
•  Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base aligned to an ever-evolving tech environment (ahead of demand)
•  Build a high-performance team environment through self-directed teams by driving performance management & measurement that is aligned with agile working practices (including daily, weekly, etc. sprint routines, regular & honest feedback, OKRs, etc.)
•  Accountable for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our tech strategy (always!)
•  Leverage coaching techniques in all team activity to drive a higher quality design and deployment of technical products and services

Financial & Vendor Management, Risk & Governance

•  Carry the ‘one stop shop’ accountability for all risk associated with architectural decision making (from ideation to deployment)
•  Manage & Apply the organization risk & governance frameworks
•  Ensure decisions on solution design are aligned to Group guidelines & are sustainable for the enterprise
•  Proactively involve / engage chapter & guild leads in product design & infrastructure decision making, applying an enterprise wide lens to product & service development
•  Manage all vendor selection processes & take full accountability for all related commercial impact
•  Negotiate best fit contracts for the organization at an enterprise level and align decision making to our key business principles of scalability, resilience, captivity etc.
•  Deliver on time & on budget (always)

Education

• Master's Degree: Information Technology