Our client in Sunderland is looking for a Solutions Architect to proactively and holistically lead and support EA activities that guide the development and management of a portfolio of solutions. Solutions include projects and products, systems (including applications, technologies, processes and information), shared infrastructure services and shared application services.
The Solution Architect will understand the concepts of business goals, objectives and business outcomes, business capabilities, value-streams and business processes and their importance in solution architecture.
They will provide the necessary leadership, analysis and design tasks related to support the development of technology solutions to ensure that solutions meet business needs and align with architectural governance and standards.
They will also create deliverables for managing the organization's portfolio of "to be" and "as is" solutions — including systems (applications, integrations, processes, information and technology), shared infrastructure services, and shared application services and components to enable and drive targeted business outcomes.
The Solution Architect will be based oniste in Sunderland for 3 days per week. This is not a remote role.
The Solutions Architect will demonstrate competencies across four key dimensions:
1. Interpret Business Needs
? Translates business and technical requirements into an architectural blueprint to achieve business objectives and documents all solution architecture design and analysis work
? Works closely with the product owners and systems owners to ensure a robust architectural runway that can support future business requirements throughout the product life cycle
? Understands business drivers and business capabilities (future and current state) and determines corresponding enterprise solution designs and change requirements to drive the organization's targeted business outcomes
Example deliverables: Requirements traceability document, business process/capability impact assessment (stretch), business process diagrams (stretch)
2. Assess Technology
? Monitors the current-state solution portfolio to identify deficiencies through aging of the technologies used by the application, or misalignment with business requirements
? Monitors micro- and macroscopic trends in EA as well as global currents, including economic, political, social/cultural, environmental, regulatory/legal and/or technological disruptions for effective decision-making
? Supports product owners and systems owners in end-of-life product decisions to maintain, refresh or retire services or systems, including applications, technologies, processes and information
? Understands emerging technology trends and disruptions and their practical application to enable new and evolving business and operating models (stretch)
? Analyses the technology industry, competitors and market trends, and determines their potential implications for a given solution (stretch)
? Analyses the business-IT environment to detect critical deficiencies, legacy and technical debt, and also recommends solutions for improvement
? Facilitates the evaluation, selection and TCO of software product standards and services, as well as the design of standard and custom software configurations
Example deliverables: Current state architecture documentation, vendor assessment for RFP, contribution to cost/benefit analysis, contributions to proof-of concept implementation
3. Apply Technology
? Leads evaluation, design and analysis for the implementation of a solutions architecture across a group of specific business applications or technologies based on enterprise business strategy, business capabilities, value-streams, business requirements and enterprise standards. This includes the strong focus on integrations (as-is and to-be designs and roadmaps).
? Works closely with the Enterprise Architect to develop a roadmap for the evolution of the enterprise solution portfolio from current to future state, as defined by the broader solutions roadmap.
? Acts as a consultant on a broad range of technologies, platforms and vendor offerings to drive targeted business outcomes
? Creates architectural designs, standards and patterns to guide and contextualise solution development across products, services, projects and systems, including applications, integrations, technologies, processes and information.
? Works closely with the program management office (PMO) or project management office to ensure the execution of plans corresponds with what is being promised throughout the project or product life cycle
? Provides consulting support to project or BAU teams to ensure the project or product is aligned with the overall enterprise architecture
Example deliverables: Solution documentation, solution architecture designs, enterprise target state architecture (stretch), application/platform strategy
4. Provide Enterprise Guidance
? Provides deliverables like standard definitions, reference models and architecture designs to support architectural governance to assess the impact of new and ongoing technology investment on the business and IT estate
? Supports a community of practice (CoP), guiding and helping teams, product owners / system owners to align with the overall enterprise architecture governance and assurance
? Designs and directs the governance activities associated with ensuring solutions architecture assurance and compliance (stretch)
Example deliverables: Solution scorecard, enterprise reference architecture components.
This vacancy is being advertised on behalf of Gem Partnership Ltd who are operating as an employment agency.
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