Chief Solutions Architect

The Principal Solutions Architect will play a pivotal role in shaping the technical direction of our organisation. This individual will lead a team of Solutions Architects, ensuring that our solutions align with business objectives, are scalable, and adhere to best practices.
Responsibilities:
Leadership and Team Management:
Lead and mentor a team of SME Solutions Architects across diverse domains
Foster a collaborative and high-performing culture within the team.
Set clear expectations, provide regular feedback, and facilitate professional growth.
Solution Design and Architecture:
Collaborate with stakeholders (business, product, and development teams) to understand requirements.
Design end-to-end technical solutions that address complex business challenges.
Ensure scalability, reliability, and maintainability of architectural designs.
Technical Strategy and Roadmap:
Define the technical vision and strategy in alignment with organisational goals.
Develop and maintain an architectural roadmap, considering emerging technologies and industry trends.
Evaluate and recommend tools, frameworks, and platforms.
Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration:
Work closely with the enterprise architecture team to ensure cohesive solutions.
Bridge the gap between business needs and technical feasibility.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation:
Identify potential risks related to architectural decisions.
Propose risk mitigation strategies and trade-offs.
Standards and Best Practices:
Establish and enforce architectural standards, patterns, and guidelines.
Promote best practices for solution design, development, and deployment.
Stakeholder Communication:
Present architectural proposals to executive leadership and project teams.
Articulate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
Continuous Learning and Innovation:
Stay abreast of industry trends, attending conferences, and participating in technical communities.
Encourage innovation within the team and across the organization.
Skills and qualifications:
A bachelor's degree in computer science, information-technology, engineering, system analysis or a related study, or equivalent experience
A minimum of five years of experience in an IT solution development discipline
Exposure to multiple, diverse technologies, platforms, and processing environments but specifically around sales, marketing, ERP and subscription management technologies.
Good understanding of strategic and emerging technology trends, and the practical application of existing and emerging technologies to new and evolving business and operating models
Good understanding of product management, agile principles and development methodologies and capability of supporting agile teams by providing advice and guidance on opportunities, impact and risks, taking account of technical and architectural debt
Experience working in a relevant industry is helpful, but not required
Experience developing architecture blueprints, strategies and roadmaps
Experience delivering presentations to senior-level executives and technical audiences
Experience of design and solutioning is essential
Data savvy with knowledge of various aspects of a technology architecture like integration, network and security
Proven analytical, planning, organisational and technical and skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Proven leadership experience, including managing and mentoring technical teams.