Job Description

JOB PURPOSEThe Solution Architect is responsible for designing and leading the implementation of a solutions and capability architecture for a particular business capability / user journey, according to the overall digital vision and target architecture. This role is responsible for the technical analysis and holistic solution design of future capabilities and features, including external dependencies, cross-domain APIs, and technical enablers / stories. This role is responsible for reviewing the target architecture vision and roadmap, evaluating and prioritizing roadmap items, and translating them into designs and non-functional requirements. This incumbent is responsible for providing support to engineering to ensure development of technical stories are aligned to defined architecture paradigms, principles, and patterns.RESPONSIBILITIESSystem Architecture

• Use appropriate tools, models of components and interfaces to contribute to the development of the systems architecture in a specific business area
• Assist in the preparation of technical plans and corporates wit business assurance and project staff to ensure technical resources are made available
• Provide advice on technical aspects pf integration systems including changes, deviations from specifications etc, and ensure relevant strategies and policies, practices and standards are applied correctly
• Turning project ideas into compelling narratives on business needs, business value and customer experience
• Designing and development of solutions to ensure customer and business needs are met
• Translating program/project strategies and business goals into detailed requirements
• Ensure cross-functional delivery and development team have complete understanding of the business and user needs
• Prioritizing activities based on customer and business needs
• Facilitating ongoing review and iteration of development work to ensure the business and user needs and requirements continue to be met by the proposed solution
• Create and maintain buy-in for programs/project vision to build awareness about inflight solutions and their impact on health

System Design

• Specify and design complex or large system solutions
• Select appropriate design tools, methods, standards that are consistent with agreed enterprise and solution architectures to ensure they are applied effectively
• Reviews others systems designs to ensure appropriate technologies are applied and selected
• Evaluates impact analysis on major design options and assess associated risks
• Ensures that systems designs balances functional, service quality and systems management requirements
• Collaborates with external and internal customers to ensure successful delivery and integration of our products

Solution Development

• Work closely with the technical teams to translate client requirements into actionable technical solutions
• Identify and recommend best practices for solution design and optimization
• Stay up to date with the latest Solution principles and trends to provide innovative solutions
• Translate theoverall digital vision and target architecture into corresponding solution designs and change requirements
• Design end-to-end solutions and cross domain integration and APIs
• Define non-functional, operational, and quality requirements for solutions
• Define technical stories to enable business capabilities, fostering re-use of existing components, and accept technical features following demos
• Collaborate to plan the release of technical stories
• Provide guidance to delivery teams to ensure alignment
• Facilitate solution compliance to security, privacy, and regulatory needs
• Manage technical debt and technology obsolescence at solution level
• Advocate adoption of new technologies into solutions

Technical Write-ups

• Produce high-quality technical write-ups and solution architecture documents that clearly outline proposed technical solutions
• Articulate the benefits and advantages of the proposed solutions in a way that resonates with clients

Customer Centricity

• Coordinates contact with Business Partners as needed to assist with support activities
• Establish and maintain a positive professional relationship with Business Partners and customers
• Maintain regular and timely communications with Business Partners and customers
• Maintain strong working relationship with customers and Business Partners
• Work with customers and Business Partners to execute consistent service processes throughout the organization
• Establish a single point of contact for issue resolution and change management
• Drive customer centricity in levels of the organization

Work Collaboratively

• Build a culture of integrity, respect and understanding across the organization
• Recognize outcomes which resulted from effective collaboration between teams
• Build co-operation and overcome barriers to information sharing, communication, and collaboration across the organization
• Facilitate opportunities to engage and collaborate with external stakeholders (Retailers and POS Companies) to develop joint solutions
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team environment

BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES

• Assertive
• Analytical
• Flexible
• Tech Savvy
• Attention to detail
• Customer focused
• Evaluating problems
• Processing details and information
• Building relationships & Trust
• Communicating information
• Providing leadership

SKILLS

• Solution architecture and design
• Feasibility analysis
• Business capability / customer journey architecture governance in agile software delivery
• Technical enablers, integration APIs, and detailed technical and operational story design
• Infrastructure design
• Estimation techniques forscaled agile
• Technology Innovation: scouting, screening and evaluation
• Cost of ownership of technology, application portfolio management
• Web-scale cloud-native architectures including IaaS, PaaSand SaaS
• Design of web-scale architectures and systems of innovation and engagement
• DevOps practices and automation tools
• Artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data technologies and architectures
• Management of technical debt

EDUCATION

• Matric
• Bachelors degree in computer science, Information Systems

EXPERIENCE

• Minimum of 3+ years of experience in a Managed Service or solution Service Provider role
• Proven expertise in designing and architecting solutions on Azure, GCP, AWS and VMWare cloud solutions
• Strong understanding of cloud services, virtualization, networking, and security
• Certifications in cloud platforms (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect, Google Professional Cloud Architect) are a plus Technology governance and legislative framework (such as COBIT, ITIL, TOGAF, SDLC, ASAP, SOA)
• Strong Microsoft Office productivity tools knowledge (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook)
• Atlassian and Jira knowledge (advantageous)
• 5 to 7 years of experience in at least three disciplines, such as business, information, solution or technical architecture, application development, middleware, information analysis, database management or operations in a multitier environment
• Extensive exposure to multiple, diverse technologies and processing environments
• Extensive experience in business capability modelling and technical and solution architecture development in a digital business context
• Experience working with agile methodologies, such as Scrum, Kanban, XP, TDD, and BDD
• Professional experience and knowledge of digital and Telecommunications industries strongly preferred

Blue Label Telecoms