Solution Architect

Job Title

Solution Architect — Building an In‑House Payment Investigation Platform

Role purpose

Design and lead the delivery of an in‑house platform that supports end‑to‑end payment investigations (exceptions, recalls/returns, claims, enquiries, tracking, evidence and audit), integrating with payment processing, case management, messaging networks and customer channels. You’ll shape the target architecture, drive engineering alignment, and ensure the platform is secure, resilient, compliant and operable at scale.

Key responsibilities

Architecture & solution design

• Own end‑to‑end solution architecture across channels, APIs, workflow/case services, data, integration and observability.
• Define target state architecture and transition roadmap (strangler patterns, incremental migration from legacy/manual processes).
• Produce architecture artefacts: HLD/LLD inputs, C4 diagrams, data flow diagrams, sequence flows, NFRs, runbooks, ADRs.
• Design investigation workflows: triage, assignment, SLA timers, evidence capture, maker/checker controls, decisioning and closure.
• Establish canonical data models for investigation cases, events, payment references, counterparties and communications.

Integration & payments domain

• Architect integrations with payment rails and services (e.g., SWIFT, CHAPS/Faster Payments, SEPA, RTP equivalents depending on market), gateways and core banking/payment hubs.
• Design inbound/outbound messaging patterns for investigations: status requests, recalls, return handling, charge/claim processes, correspondence.
• Ensure idempotency, correlation (end‑to‑end trace IDs), retries, dead‑lettering and reconciliation for all investigation flows.
• Define event-driven patterns (pub/sub) and API contracts for upstream/downstream teams.

Non‑functional requirements (NFRs)

• Drive NFRs covering resilience (active-active where required), availability, latency, throughput, disaster recovery, and capacity planning.
• Ensure strong security architecture: threat modelling, IAM, RBAC/ABAC, privileged access, secrets management, encryption in transit/at rest.
• Design for auditability and compliance: immutable logs, evidential storage, full case history, segregation of duties, retention policies.
• Embed observability: metrics, logs, traces, SLOs/SLIs, alerting, incident playbooks.

Delivery leadership

• Partner with Product Owners, Engineering Leads, Ops/SRE, InfoSec, Risk/Compliance, and business SMEs to align scope and priorities.
• Provide architectural governance: design reviews, standards, guardrails, and technical decision facilitation.
• Mentor squads on patterns (API design, eventing, data, resilience) and unblock delivery through pragmatic trade-offs.
• Support vendor/product evaluation when needed (BPM/workflow, rules engines, document/evidence stores).

Data & analytics

• Define data strategy for operational reporting, MI and regulatory reporting (case volumes, SLA breaches, root-cause categories).
• Architect data lineage and quality controls; define golden source for investigation outcomes.
• Support analytics for proactive issue detection (e.g., recurring breaks, correspondent issues, fraud signals where applicable).

Typical deliverables

• Target architecture + phased migration plan
• NFR catalogue and platform guardrails
• Integration patterns and API/event contract standards
• Event Driven Integration
• Operational readiness: monitoring, runbooks, DR plans, support model
• Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)

Required skills & experience

• Proven Solution Architect experience delivering mission-critical platforms in banking/financial services.
• Strong payments domain knowledge: investigation lifecycles, recalls/returns, exceptions handling, payment references and reconciliation.
• Integration expertise: APIs (REST/gRPC), messaging (Kafka/AMQP), event-driven architecture, workflow orchestration, distributed systems.
• Security by design: IAM, encryption, key management, secure SDLC, threat modelling.
• Resilience engineering: HA/DR designs, failure modes, back-pressure, idempotency, consistency models.
• Cloud and/or hybrid architecture experience (container platforms, service mesh optional), plus CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code awareness.
• Strong stakeholder management and ability to translate business outcomes into implementable designs.

Desirable

• Experience with case management/BPM platforms and investigation tooling patterns.
• Familiarity with SWIFT message types relevant to investigations and tracking (depending on scope/market).
• Knowledge of operational risk controls, audit requirements, and regulatory expectations around payment handling.
• Experience modernising legacy payments operations using incremental migration.

Education / certifications (optional)

• Degree in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent experience
• Architecture certifications (e.g., TOGAF) and/or cloud certifications (as applicable)

Skills

Solution architecture, Payment gateways, Payment systems