Solution Architect

Job Overview

As a Solutions Architect, you will be responsible for designing and implementing high-quality technical solutions that align with the business objectives of the bank. You will work closely with stakeholders, including product managers, development teams, and analysts, to understand requirements and translate them into technical architectural specifications. In this role, you will also serve as a technical leader, providing guidance to development teams and the architecture board, ensuring that architectural decisions align with internal, regulatory, and business standards. You will evaluate solutions based off their reliability, performance, and usability, and use modern application software development technologies such as container orchestration, microservice architecture patterns, and API and event-based integration patterns.

Strong communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and a deep understanding of modern software architecture are essential for success. Whether designing cloud-native applications, optimizing system performance, or ensuring security compliance, you will play a key role in shaping the technology strategy of the organization. As a team, we internationally coordinate our ambitions with the C-level and we design, structure, and help our engineers to achieve these ambitions. The team consists of a group of solution architects that use their diverse technologies, backgrounds and corporate experiences to follow market developments and guide technology changes in a changing regulatory and competitive landscape for the mid to long term.

Key Responsibilities

• Your primary responsibility is to architect and design solutions by developing end-to-end technical solutions that align with business needs, industry best practices, and technology standards
• Analyze business use cases, read technical documentation and standards, and understand the financial and technical processes of the bank
• Effectively coordinate the communication, participation, and cooperation with engineers to deliver well-architected solutions to the business lines
• Work with Domain and Enterprise Architects to align design and solutions with architectural group standards and strategic direction
• Participate in the architectural board of the bank to review and govern the architectural practices of the group
• Keeping a close relation with the different leads and product owners influencing the development priorities and direction.
• Lead in the creation of the documentation of features, solutions, technical initiatives, and product designs on a physical, logical, functional, and network level
• Be knowledgeable and keep up to date as a subject matter expert on the existing systems, system integrations, network, products, and services running within the ING ecosystem
• Be in collaboration with teams for the implementation and development of your architectural designs, including the feedback loop of changes over the lifecycle of the development effort
• Adhere to all ING policies and complete all mandatory training requirements.

Key Capabilities/Experience

• Software development experience, both as a practitioner and as a lead, preferably in Java-based enterprise systems.
• Extensive experience in application design, analyzing business requirements, creating documentation for technical and non-technical readers, and delivering software solutions to fit and scope
• Experience in containerization and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Understanding of networking principles, security concepts, testing best practices, and modern software development practices
• Knowledge of industry standard Automation and DevOps methods
• Knowledge of technology in several levels of the full technology stack (from infrastructure to applications) with expert knowledge & hands-on experience on one or more areas (i.e. having a focus on backend business applications, networking, or security)
• Knowledge of the entire Software Development Lifecycle and best practices relating thereof
• Knowledge of architectural modeling, like C4, ArchiMate, UML, ERDs, etc.
• Knowledge in Distributed Systems and Microservice Architecture Patterns like Domain Driven Design, Methods in Splitting the Monolith, Event Driven Systems, SOA, etc.
• Knowledge of Enterprise Tooling like RHEL, JBoss, Openshift, Java Enterprise Applications, Spring and Spring Boot
• Knowledge of Public Cloud and related tooling
• Knowledge of Oracle Database Systems
• Knowledge or familiarity with Relational Databases and NoSQL Databases.

Minimum Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in web or software development, minimum of 2 years as a lead or architect role
• Communication Skills: an architect requires both formal and informal global coordination and communication skills amongst large groups of stakeholders. Professional communications skill and the ability to reason technically in English is required.
• Presentation and Documentation Skills: being an architect requires you to regularly communicate your designs to multiple stakeholders and the engineering community through documentation, white papers, and presentations for business and technical audiences alike
• Action-oriented, decisive approach to work required, with the willingness to take a hands-on role to ensure deliverables are met on time if needed, willing to take responsibility
• Outstanding analytical skills, people deeply curious and interested in technology
• Ability to work well within a cross-cultural team environment. Willingness for international travel and interaction with peers of multiple nationalities. Appreciation for multiple viewpoints, customs and diversity is a must.

Optional:

• Experience in Banking/FinTech space is an advantage
• Experience working with Regulatory, Compliance, and Policy matters regarding systems design and architecture is an advantage