Expert Solution Architect (PROJ-4411)

Job Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop, and/or lead the development of, solution designs, systems views and architectures using logical models of components and interfaces, capitalising on specialist expertise and knowledge across the organisation to meet business requirements.
• Oversee and coordinate numerous, multi-disciplinary teams developing and delivering solutions, designs, and systems specifications to meet user requirements and business needs.
• Undertake detailed research and analysis in support of solution design activities and the identification of candidate strategies to achieve the required business outcomes.
• Maintain knowledge and expertise in ASD systems, and the operating environment, to ensure that solution designs are suitable for integration whilst meeting business needs.
• Build and sustain relationships, liaising with a range of internal and external stakeholders (including other teams, peers and colleagues across Defence and other organisations), identifying and working towards mutually beneficial outcomes.
• Motivate and mentor teams, aligning complementary skills and allocate resources in a manner that delivers results.
• Assess and measure projects to understand critical factors for success, anticipate and identify issues and risks, and develop supporting risk mitigation strategies.
• Analyse and measure complex solution design issues, applying expertise to identify and recommend courses of action and implementation of resolution strategies.
• Accountable for accurate completion of work within timeframes and quality requirements.
• Demonstrate and apply knowledge of project planning in relation to scope, time, quality, communications and risk management for solution design and project implementation activities.

Technical Skills Required:

• At least five years of experience as a Solution Architect or equivalent role.
• Strong technical leadership experience.
• Excellent organisational, communication, conflict resolution, and negotiation skills.
• Qualifications and demonstrated experience in relevant technical discipline/s.
• Experience providing technical direction or architecture to projects delivering complex solutions.
• Excellent understanding and demonstrated application of current architectural design patterns, standards, technologies and techniques including Architectural Frameworks such as TOGAF or similar models.
• Knowledge and experience in cloud architecture best practices.

Essential criteria:

• Business process improvement: Level 6 (SFIA). Plans and leads strategic, large and complex business process improvement activities aligned with automation, or exploiting existing or new technologies. Develops organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for business process improvement. Leads the introduction of techniques, methodologies and tools to meet business requirements, ensuring consistency across all user groups. Leads the development of organisational capabilities for business process improvement and ensures adoption and adherence to policies and standards.

• Emerging technology monitoring: Level 5 (SFIA). Monitors the external environment to gather intelligence on emerging technologies. Assesses and documents the impacts, threats and opportunities to the organisation. Creates reports and technology roadmaps and shares knowledge and insights with others.

• Enterprise and business architecture: Level 5 (SFIA). Develops models and plans to drive the execution of the business strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance. Contributes to creating and reviewing a systems capability strategy which meets the business's strategic requirements. Determines requirements and specifies effective business processes, through improvements in technology, information or data practices, organisation, roles, procedures and equipment.

• Solution architecture: Level 5 (SFIA). Leads the development of solution architectures in specific business, infrastructure or functional areas. Leads the preparation of technical plans and ensures that appropriate technical resources are made available. Ensures that appropriate tools and methods are available, understood and employed in architecture development. Provides technical guidance and governance on solution development and integration. Evaluates requests for changes and deviations from specifications and recommends actions. Ensures that relevant technical strategies, policies, standards and practices (including security) are applied correctly.

• Stakeholder relationship management: Level 6 (SFIA). Leads the development of comprehensive stakeholder management strategies and plans. Builds long-term, strategic relationships with senior stakeholders (internal and external). Facilitates the engagement of stakeholders in support of the delivery of services and change projects. Acts as a single point of contact for senior stakeholders, facilitating relationships between them. Negotiates to ensure that stakeholders understand and agree on what will meet their needs, and that appropriate agreements are defined. Oversees monitoring of relationships including lessons learned and appropriate feedback. Leads actions to improve relations and open communications with and between stakeholders.

• Systems design: Level 6 (SFIA). Develops and drives adoption of and adherence to organisational policies, standards, guidelines, and methods for system design. Champions the importance and value of system design principles and the selection of appropriate systems design life cycle models. Leads system design activities for strategic, large and complex systems development programmes. Develops effective implementation strategies consistent with specified requirements, architectures and constraints of performance and feasibility. Develops system design requiring the introduction of new technologies or new uses for existing technologies.

Desirable criteria:

• Governance: Level 6 (SFIA). Implements the governance framework to enable governance activity to be conducted. Within a defined area of accountability, determines the requirements for appropriate governance reflecting the organisation's values, ethics and wider governance frameworks. Communicates delegated authority, benefits, opportunities, costs, and risks. Leads reviews of governance practices with appropriate and sufficient independence from management activity. Acts as the organisation's contact for relevant regulatory authorities and ensures proper relationships between the organisation and external stakeholders.

• Information assurance: Level 5 (SFIA). Interprets information assurance and security policies and applies these to manage risks. Provides advice and guidance to ensure adoption of and adherence to information assurance architectures, strategies, policies, standards and guidelines. Plans, organises and conducts information assurance and accreditation of complex domains areas, cross-functional areas, and across the supply chain. Contributes to the development of policies, standards and guidelines.

• Requirements definition and management: Level 6 (SFIA). Champions the importance and value of requirements management principles and selecting effective requirements management life cycle models. Develops organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for requirements definition and management. Plans and leads scoping, requirements definition and priority setting for complex, strategic programmes. Drives adoption of, and adherence to, policies and standards. Develops new methods and organisational capabilities for requirements management.

• Strategic planning: Level 5 (SFIA). Collates information and creates reports and insights to support strategy management processes. Ensures that all stakeholders are aware of the strategic management approach and timetables. Provides support and guidance to help stakeholders adhere to the approach. Develops and communicates plans to drive forward the strategy and related change planning. Contributes to the development of policies, standards and guidelines for strategy development and planning.