Senior Solution Architect - JHB at Old Mutual South Africa

Job Description

The Senior Solution Architect primarily works with the business domain experts and business leadership to craft a solution that is fit for purpose from a business perspective. They focus their attention on a solution package to make sure that it operates effectively as part of the whole as well as independently as a stand-alone solution.
Focusses on the technical and business feasibility of a solution and ensure that it fits within well-established patterns and guidelines laid down by the Enterprise architects and solution practice architects. Takes responsibility for the quality, commercial compliance and technical integrity of the solution being delivered back into the business.
Works actively with a range of stakeholders including senior technology / platform systems analysts from across the operational space (both internal subject matter experts and those of the chosen suppliers) to ensure that patterns incorporated are future fit and ensures scalability and resilience of the solution built. Leads a small team of solution architects under his/her guidance.

Create solution architecture and visible pipeline of target capabilities

• Responsible for defining end-to-end solution architecture strategies and roadmaps that encompass the current and future needs of the business, IT and the product platforms. Consistently align with the technology (including cloud) aspirations of OM and guide the evolution of the solution in line with these.
• Responsible to develop and maintain up to date As-Is and To-Be conceptual, logical and physical architectures of the solution/platform that are easily accessible for usage and guidance.
• Manage dependencies across platforms and systems and keep these well documented, updated and available for decisioning.

Enablement and support

• Responsible for the preservation of technical architectural IP by utilising version control practices.
• Enable management levels by providing appropriate reporting – technical and non-technical reporting that includes team planning, forecasting, milestones, strategic plans and other relevant artifacts.
• Participate in peer reviews (code, solution, testing etc.) system and solution demos, and transfer knowledge and capability across delivery teams for improved solutioning with the aim of evolving architectural practices and guiding solution delivery. Facilitate design reviews with team.
• Models, defines and collaborates around designs with business and enterprise stakeholders.

Compliance:

• Provides critical input into the operational readiness and resilience components of the solution.
• Ensures delivery fits within the guidelines published by enterprise / solution practice architects complies with the IT strategy. Works closely and continuously with Enterprise Architecture Chapter Leads and heads to ensure enterprise-wide compliance to architectural standards and guardrails.
• Oversees the implementation of new integration services to ensure they adhere to the signed off solution architecture designs.

Continuous Improvement

• Continuous research and development of solution architecture technologies, patterns and designs for scale, resilience and innovation.
• Monitors the external environment to gather intelligence on emerging technologies and translate information into appropriate response within the affected solutions.
• Serve as Old Mutual representative to align solutions from Managed service providers with internal standards and expectations that relate to technical delivery, performance, security.

Financial costing, Risk & Governance

• Apply and maintain all Old Mutual architecture risk governance, compliance & regulatory standards and frameworks within the platform/solution to guide delivery.
• Models and defines the financial implications and considerations of potential solutions. Identify and evaluates alternative architectures and the trade-offs in cost, performance and scalability.
• Apply FinOps principles as part of the design/architecture process so that the designed solution caters for an optimal operating practice that leverages fit-for-purpose technologies and can be consistently predicted and monitored.
• Fully represents OM’s needs and requirement for optimal costing, reduced risk, adequate governance and adherence to technical and non-technical when dealing with vendors and Managed service providers.

Strategy:

• Operate across both the technical levels within the enterprise architecture and the value chain to develop holistic, sustainable and integrated solutions that are underpinned by designs, standards, patterns and methodology that align to OM best practice guidelines.
• Identify, design and deliver relevant, scalable, testable and reusable architecture artifacts that contribute to the overall enterprise technology solutions.
• Provides options and recommendations to business stakeholders to guide the best business decisions based on the different solution alternatives and patterns.
• Provides thought leadership that aligns current work and designs with future aspirations of the organisation and be leveraging the latest advances in technology while designing solutions with the end customer in mind.

Technical Consultation:

• Analyses business processes and architectural solutions to determine optimised architecture patterns that could deliver value through improved cycle times, lower costs and improved quality.
• Responsible for understanding client requirements, collecting data, analysis and problem resolution.

Defines a solution and ensure that it:

• Meets the business requirements.
• Meets the functional and non-functional requirements.
• Fits within the guidelines published by the enterprise / solution practice architects.
• Complies with the overall IT strategy.
• Can be readily leveraged by other parts of the business.

Ensure that the usage guidelines relevant artifacts are documented, published and discoverable – including technical guidelines and API consumption details.

• Build and evolve the architectural capability of delivery teams across the business – through active coaching and information / knowledge sharing.

Personal Effectiveness:

• Ability to explain the complex architectural constructs in simple terms to facilitate a common understanding and drive desired technology decisioning.
• Collaborates effectively with others to achieve targeted results and drive strategic intent of OM.
• Individually accountable for managing own time, tasks and output quality for periods of 3 months to 1 year.
• Assist in the demand and workload planning for projects and portfolios that they are part of.
• Align own behaviour with the organisation culture and values.
• Proactively lead the implementation of agile practices, remove barriers to success and ensure seamless delivery in a continuously changing work environment. Incorporate agile ceremonies where possible to improve team velocity.

Minimum Qualifications/Experience (Required for the job)

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Computer Science, or Information Systems.
• 5 – 10 years’ experience in in a Software Engineering or Solution Architect capacity.
• Previous experience in a leadership and architect capacity 3-5 years.
• Skilled at aligning disparate agendas for the wider organisation enablement and strategic purpose.
• Experience in working with teams in a complex IT environment and must have a sloid foundation of IT technical skills (previous experience as a programmer, solution designer or equivalent).
• A solid grasp of IT and architecture concepts, patterns, principles and technologies.
• Firm grasp of enterprise integration patterns and experience defining and implementing these.
• Experience in software modelling.
• Knowledge of IT governance, operations and best practices.
• An acute understanding of how to prioritize change and how to manage multiple related change programs.

Additional Qualifications/Experience (preferred, not a requirement)

• Certification and working knowledge of Enterprise Architecture methodologies (e.g. TOGAF, Zachman, SOA, ITIL, COBIT, etc.)
• Certifications like AWS Certified Solution Architect or relevant credentials desired.