Solution Architect

My client, a market leading provider of pensions and insurance products and services, is looking for a Senior Solution Architect who has worked in this sector and has experience in a range of consulting roles in fast moving customer engagements.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

• The candidate will principally be responsible for defining solution architecture for end-to-end pensions solutions, potentially across a range of different business portfolios within a specific market area.
• You must have a background and deep familiarity with the Pensions industry sector (DB pensions and administration) and preferably have specific experience in the Pension Risk Transfer domain.
• You should be confident operating in a consulting-led environment, communicating with senior business stakeholders and positioning solutions in a commercially aware manner.
• You must be adept at building relationships across multiple teams.
• You should be comfortable defining and delivering solution architecture deliverables in large complex projects working closely with both business and technology delivery teams.

Technical knowledge:

• From your core experience as a Solution Architect, you should have experience with a range of different solution types and technologies including:
• Policy Administration Systems
• CRM / Customer Service (ideally Dynamics)
• Cloud (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS)
• Integration and microservices
• Enterprise Software
• Process Automation
• Enterprise Architecture Tooling

On the job details:

• Developing solution architecture against functional and non-functional business requirements in line with industry standards and best practices.
• Documenting solution designs, driving through key design decisions, and solution delivery approaches and successfully guiding these through architecture assurance and approval gates.
• Researching and elaborating technology solution options and preparing comparative analysis including costs, risks and coverage and outlining strategies including proof of concepts.
• Working with delivery teams to ensure compliance of developed solutions to underlying solution architecture.
• Assessing and selecting commercial off-the-shelf solutions in partnership with IT, Procurement, business leaders and existing or potential providers of IT services.
• Conducting due diligence on potential providers of solutions and individual solution components or services.
• Providing industry insight to explore the selection and potential application of emerging and disruptive technologies to entrenched business problems.

Critical skills and experience:

• Strong experience in designing and proposing solutions for a given business requirement adhering to architectural principles.
• Strong experience in Insurance/Pensions industry.
• TOGAF certified (or equivalent practitioner level certification in Solution or Enterprise Architecture).
• Used appropriate tools, including logical models of components and interfaces, to contribute to the development of systems architectures in specific business or functional areas.
• Produced detailed component specifications and translated these into detailed designs for implementation using selected products.
• Analytical thinking & problem solving.
• Flexibility, energy and ability to work well with others in a virtual, geographically dispersed team environment.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills - working with stakeholders and product owners.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills.