Enterprise Architect recruitment
Reporting to the Chief Architect within this leading Insurer you will: develop strategy, principles, policies and roadmaps for assigned areas to enable the successful delivery of the overall IT strategy; work across the enterprise to define holistic solutions, taking advantage of technologies to address business challenges and drive efficiencies and effectiveness; shape the early stage of projects to ensure that the project's architecture vision is appropriately aligned with strategic direction; work with Solutions Architects during projects to ensure that the strategic direction is understood, and that any clarifications or refinements to the direction are made in light of practical implementation experiences; monitor and review technical progress against the roadmaps to anticipate and resolve any issues so that the IT strategy objectives are met; actively ensure retirement of legacy technology; produce documentation and other communication materials to a high quality and appropriate to the stakeholder groups; work with other architects and the wider team to promote consistency and synergies; establish and maintain effective relationships with internal business units and external service suppliers to ensure the detailed technology direction meets the wider business objectives; lead and drive external service suppliers to identify and evaluate emerging technologies to increase cost effectiveness and flexibility and to support the organisation going forward; contribute to a set of actionable plans to reach the appropriate level of maturity for the organisation's architecture function, maintain professional and technical expertise to keep up to date with current and future technologies; develop business and/or technical expertise in specific areas; define the solution for and manage the delivery of small scale proof of concept projects; support projects on occasions where necessary to overcome specific technical hurdles; contribute to project deliveries by performing all or part of the Solution Architect role when appropriate. Successful candidates will possess the following: significant solution design experience - covering applications, infrastructure, or both; significant enterprise architecture experience in a large organisation, taking accountability for both conceptual thinking and practical implementation; in-depth knowledge of several topics within applications and/or infrastructure architecture; proven ability to deliver architecture in a large-scale fast moving dynamic environment; an understanding of the inter-operation of hardware, network and software components necessary for the delivery of complete, complex systems; ability to influence decisions and negotiate solutions with suppliers and stakeholders in order to ensure the right results for the organisation; commercial awareness; excellent knowledge of problem analysis and design techniques; experience of working with third party service supplier / outsource providers; experience of working with all levels throughout organisation; excellent documentation skills - both at detailed and summary levels; strong communication and interpersonal skills - ability to communicate with and respond to the needs of diverse audiences including ability to write clear, concise, comprehensive documents tailored to both technical and business audiences; analysis and evaluation skills; ability to identify and quantify key areas of risk or complexity; ability to prioritise and organise work to achieve deadlines. Experience of working in the Insurance or Financial Services industry is advantageous but not essential, as is experience of working in a multi-supplier environment. TOGAF qualification advantageous.