Sr. Solutions Architect

Join a growing, global commercial bank at the heart of the innovation, technology, green tech and life sciences space. We continue to expand our global footprint and our banking technology is at the core of everything we do.

As a technology leader and banking subject matter expert, the IT Solutions Architect III will design, develop and implement IT architecture standards. In some cases the role may lead, either directly or by matrix, a team of Solution Architects with in an IT vertical.

The Solutions Architect is responsible for defining the business and technology models and defining technology roadmaps to support each of SVB business. For each IT project within their vertical, the IT Solutions Architect will review business requirements, lead architecture design, define implementation approach and guide engineers, technical project managers and developers to ensure all solutions support SVB’s enterprise standards. The Solutions Architect assesses the maturity of the overarching enterprise infrastructure; reviews technical design and application design specifications to assure integration with the enterprise model. Identifies gaps, overlaps and inconsistencies and opportunities to develop data models that support SVB’s business processes efficiently and effectively.

The Solution Architect:

Reports to IT Director, Solution Architect.
Drives the overall design of technology implementations and ensures quality for the Solution Architecture and technology roadmaps for business vertical, helps lead the Solution Architecture Community of Practice.
Provides input to the creation of project initiation documents including objectives, scope, technology approach, and vendor selection when needed.
Provide support and guidance to the development teams during the analysis, design, development, and testing processes.
Provide subject matter expertise of application architecture, and consult business and technology teams when application architecture knowledge is needed.
Partners with business and IT vertical head to define and champion the business cases and supporting financial details for business system improvements in the business verticals.
Must influence across their team, IT, and the business to drive continuous improvements in the direction of the Architecture Team’s approved target state architecture.

Qualifications

Required skills

Applicant must have deep analytical understanding of technology design patterns and best practices.
Be aware of technology trends and developments as well as relevant product roadmaps in order to introduce industry leading practices and technologies to the bank and align the specific technologies identified with the relevant business capabilities they support.
Ensure alignment of Business Goals with an IT Enterprise Architectural Blueprints.
Define the ongoing architecture governance process to ensure ongoing alignment with the business strategy.
Work with platform architects and engineering leads across the organization to ensure the appropriate technology strategies for all platforms are defined fully and fit into the overarching framework of the enterprise architecture.
Define and document technology standards and the policies and the appropriate governance process to enforce them.
Analyze legacy IT systems and business processes in the context of industry leading practices and recommend initiatives to improve business capabilities through continuous improvements to the enterprise architecture – assist in developing and championing the necessary business cases to accomplish same.
Provide senior consultative oversight and guidance to the most complex technical projects, especially those that touch multiple technology domains and require numerous and complex interfaces between core systems. Further in this capacity:
Represent Enterprise Architecture in a formal consulting capacity to key technical projects by acting as a sounding board, advisor, and technical consultant to the appropriate Tech Leads.
Review and approve system and interface designs.
Review and advise on solution alternative reviews and designs for these same key projects.
Formulate, Document, and present business domain strategies to the Architecture Review Team.
Drive and serve as custodians of EA roadmaps and the Governance process. Maintain EIC Schematics.
With Architecture Review Team, define and enforce technology standards.
Lead collaboration of and arbitrate conflicts between technology domains and their stakeholders. Participate in business and technology planning sessions and anticipate future business/technology changes.
Work with Business Partners and Enterprise Architecture to review business drivers, needs, and strategies and understand implications to the application architecture.
Establish criteria and perform technology evaluations, including analysis and proof of concept along with supporting analysis and documentation.
Communicate implications of architectural decisions, issues, and plans to business and vertical leadership.
Requires10+years of IT financial services work experience, preferably in the banking industry, in a combination of Enterprise Architecture related IT fields including 8+ years of IT Delivery, technical project management or related experience.
Ability to facilitate and lead cross-functional teams to drive technical consensus and drive complex solutions with technical interdependencies.
Comfortable facilitating work sessions with business partners, technical engineers and senior managers and able to lead discussions, capture results and produce related technical design documents and related deliverables.
Experienced in various SDLC frameworks including Waterfall and Agile.
Consistent demonstration of professional judgment.
Able to communicate complex information clearly and concisely to both technical and non-technical team members and executives.
Able to work independently and also to collaborate across the organization.
Able to work in a fast paced and dynamic environment and achieve results amidst constraints.
Able to prioritize and respond to multiple deadlines during the course of the day.

Desired or Preferred

Firsthand experience with one or more of the following: Compliance systems (Oracle OFSA Applications), Core Banking Systems, Finance System (PeopleSoft), Payment Systems and Gateways (FedWire, SWIFT, NACHA), CRM system (MS Dynamics), Middleware and BPM (Appian) systems.
TOGAF Certification
ITIL Foundations Certification
Familiarity with the financial industry and knowledge of U.S. FFIEC and U.K. regulatory guidelines.
Familiarity with COBIT framework
Familiarity or certification with PMP process framework