Solution Architect in London

We’re determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. Join our team as we help shape the future.

Provide Architecture leadership and support to the Hartford’s international team and be the liaison to the counterparts in the US organizations. Responsibility and accountability for the delivery of business solutions and architecture initiatives in-line with technology design best practices and standards adopted by the Hartford for the Hartford’s International segment of the organisation.

Gain a comprehensive understanding of the functionality provided by core business systems, in-house developed applications, and MI platforms along with the application and data integration mechanisms used between these key business systems to ensure business needs are met whilst optimising the technology landscape.

Attend International market forums in respect of new initiatives and market reform, to keep abreast of changes within the International Insurance Market, feeding this back to the wider Solution Architect Team and IT Technology Manager to help identify and prioritise future projects.

Job Responsibilities

• Assist the enterprise architecture team in the creation of current and future state architecture roadmaps for the International segment so that a gap analysis is documented and projects / initiatives recommended to address these gaps.
• Assist in strategic planning, scoping, and business case development of project initiatives.
• Thorough understanding of the Lloyd’s of London and general commercial insurance industry, business processes and associated system functionality required to operate a multinational insurance organisation.
• Be the Innovation Architect that works across the Hartford Group looking at existing and new ways of working that can be applied to International. Work with the business identifying, delivering Proof of Concepts (PoCs).
• Act in the capacity of project design authority for architecture specifications during project delivery activity and ensure these are aligned / in context of enterprise business activities.
• Coordinate solution designs across data, application, business process, infrastructure architecture domain subject matter experts.
• Produce comprehensive documentation of application environments, data-flows, and support processes.
• Periodically review conformity of projects and enhancements against target architecture designs.
• Advise application development teams on best practices for building and structuring application logic and code to create efficient, performant, flexible, scalable and reusable system components that meet functional and non-functional specifications.
• Ensure integration mechanisms utilised between different business systems (both internal and external) and varying datasets are structured in a logical and simple manner.
• Ensure that the correct IT and Compliance procedures are followed including security protocols, GDPR, etc.
• Govern business information and data as a strategic asset ensuring conformity to enterprise standards resulting in a high degree of quality.
• Maintain knowledge of industry developments in technology, insurance market sectors, and regulatory changes to drive innovation throughout the organisation and comply with the operating model of the business environment.
• Liaise with the Architecture functions to define, adopt and document general technology principles, standards, and frameworks.
• Drive the evaluation of new and emerging technologies and processes to enhance the organisations technology landscape.
• Establish pragmatic architecture review processes to ensure BAU change and support activity conforms to architecture principles.
• Understand and become a subject matter expert on internal as well as external 3rd party systems and market platforms.

Qualifications and Capabilities

Technical Skills

• Broad expertise in the design of application, integration, data and infrastructure architectures, and demonstrable deep insights into application and data architecture domains.
• Proven strategic thinker whilst identifying short-term deliverables and tactical solutions to aid implementing roadmaps.
• Experience in a variety of software development and project delivery methodologies.
• Extensive experience of working with software vendors and technology suppliers.
• Leadership of vendor platform assessment and selection processes.
• Technical understanding of software development patterns e.g. MVC, MVVM.
• Strong knowledge of integration and middleware technologies including but not limited to: enterprise message bus, web services and micro service concepts.
• Excellent understanding of data architectures to support storage, transformation, transmission and retrieval of data in the context of business system and management information systems.
• Possess an understanding of programming languages and techniques utilised in custom software development projects.

Personal Skills

• Excellent written and oral communications skills and the ability to work effectively with and communicate technical concepts to employees at all levels across the organisation.
• Experience of providing guidance, coaching and mentoring to project and development teams.
• Strong analytical and logical problem solving skills.
• Proven ability in stakeholder management, issue and conflict resolution.
• Good negotiation and mediation skills.
• Demonstrates and expects a sense of urgency, tenacity, ownership, accountability, collaboration and responsibility.
• Ability to learn and understand new products & technology quickly.
• Excellent time management and organisational skills.
• Self-starter, able to manage own workload and juggle tasks appropriately.
• Proactive with suggestions for improvements; thinks laterally; receptive to new ideas.