Enterprise Architect

**Role title: Principal Enterprise Architect**

**Location: Midrand**

**Contract duration: 12 months**

**Architecture Strategy & Planning**
- Develop and evolve the enterprise architecture blueprint, frameworks and target-state architecture, ensuring alignment with long-term business objectives and future-state technology vision.
- Define and maintain architectural principles, domain strategies, and standardized reference models that support scalable, interoperable, and secure technology ecosystems.
- Translate corporate strategy, regulatory mandates, and digital transformation goals into clear architectural initiatives and target-state designs.
- Continuously assess technology trends and emerging innovations to guide modernization and strategic platform selection.

**Governance & Oversight**
- Chair Architecture & Design Review Boards (ARBs) to review, guide, and approve solution designs, ensuring consistency with enterprise standards and strategic objectives.
- Define governance processes for architectural compliance, exception management, and deviation tracking across business portfolios and technical teams.
- Perform architecture assurance and gap assessments to identify technical risk, misalignment, and opportunities for consolidation or optimization.
- Ensure ongoing enforcement and evolution of architecture policies, design standards, and lifecycle documentation for all enterprise assets.
- Support audit readiness and regulatory compliance by embedding architecture governance in change delivery.

**Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement**
- Act as a strategic advisor to Head of Architecture, shaping investment decisions and prioritizing technology initiatives based on architectural insights.
- Work closely with product managers, domain architects, engineers, and business analysts to co-create architectural solutions that meet functional and non-functional requirements.
- Build alignment across multiple delivery streams and business units to ensure architecture decisions enable reusability, resilience, and cost-effectiveness.
- Facilitate cross-functional design workshops, architecture forums, and technical deep-dives to enable shared understanding and decision-making.
- Represent the enterprise architecture function in vendor evaluations, technology partnerships, and RFP/RFI processes.

**Architecture Delivery**
- Lead the design and evolution of enterprise-scale platforms, including cloud-native systems, Payment Systems, API gateways, service orchestration layers, event-driven architectures, and data lakes.
- Guide the definition of architecture enablers and technical epics within agile planning cycles
- Ensure timely delivery of architecture artifacts and technical blueprints to support sprint-level execution and platform runway readiness.
- Monitor implementation of architectural designs to ensure conformance with standards and provide hands-on support in resolving complex design challenges.
- Foster DevSecOps and platform engineering practices by integrating architecture with CI/CD pipelines, security automation, and observability frameworks.

**Technical Experience**:

- Proven track record in defining and evolving enterprise-wide architecture strategies, reference models, and technology roadmaps.
- Experience driving architecture transformations aligned to digital business models (e.g., omnichannel, platform as a service, composable architectures).
- Demonstrated hands-on experience architecting across multiple domains, including:

- ** Applications**: Monolith to microservices decomposition, modernization, and lifecycle management.
- ** Data**: Master Data Management (MDM), data lakes, streaming pipelines (e.g., Kafka), and analytics platforms.
- ** Integration**: API-led design (REST, GraphQL), event-driven architecture, service mesh, and ESB replacement strategies.
- ** Infrastructure & Cloud**: Hybrid/multi-cloud architectures (AWS, Azure, GCP), container orchestration (Kubernetes), IaaS/PaaS adoption models.
- Deep understanding of architectural implications for regulatory compliance frameworks (e.g., PCI-DSS, GDPR, ISO 27001).
- Experience integrating Zero Trust Architecture, identity management (OAuth2, OpenID, SAML), and encryption protocols into enterprise design.
- Familiarity with architecture risk assessments, threat modelling, and secure-by-design principles.
- Experience of various software engineering playbook frameworks (Agile development, Automated testing, Code reviews, Continuous delivery, Continuous integration, Machine learning. Observability, Privacy, Reliability, Security)
- Strong experience in designing high traffic, scalable, reliable, and secure software systems.
- Knowledge of architectural styles and patterns (e.g., Microservices, SOA, MVC, Event-driven architecture).
- Understanding of cloud architecture and services (e.g., serverless computing, containerization, orchestration).
- Experience with data modelling, data warehousing, and data integration.
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