About the Role
We are seeking a Solution Architect who will convert business requirements into robust solution designs and provide technical leadership across development, infrastructure, and integration teams. As a key technical authority, you will oversee the solution's technical direction, actively questioning vendor and internal proposals and addressing any shortcomings related to security standards, project budgets, or design failures. This role emphasizes leadership and hands-on involvement rather than merely focusing on documentation.
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Key Responsibilities
Solution Architecture
- End-to-End Ownership: Own the end-to-end solution design across application, data, integration, security, and infrastructure layers.
- Documentation & Diagrams: Produce detailed architecture documents, data flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, and integration and API specifications.
- Pattern Selection: Select appropriate architecture patterns and justify choices based on trade-offs, costs, and risks.
Technical Challenge & Design Assurance
- Design Reviews: Review designs submitted by developers, vendors, and infrastructure teams; challenge them on feasibility, scalability, performance, security, and supportability.
- Integration Testing: Evaluate integration approaches (REST, event-driven, batch, file-based) against failure scenarios, transaction volumes, and system dependencies.
- Assumptions Validation: Validate sizing, environment, and hosting assumptions (Dev/SIT/UAT/Production, cloud, and on-premises) alongside infrastructure teams.
- Technical Debt & Bottlenecks: Identify technical debt, performance bottlenecks, and single points of failure in existing systems, proposing suitable remediation.
- Quality & Compliance Checks: Ensure that delivered work aligns with approved designs and escalate any deviations early.
Business Analysis
- Requirements Engineering: Elicit and document business, functional, non-functional, and technical requirements (BRD, FRD, TRD, User Stories).
- Traceability: Maintain full traceability linking every requirement to a specific design element and test case.
- Workshops: Facilitate workshops with business owners to translate business needs into actionable technical deliverables.
- Impact Assessment: Support impact assessments regarding scope, effort, and project timelines whenever requirements change.
Stakeholder & Vendor Coordination
- Single Technical Contact: Serve as the main technical point of contact between business owners, delivery teams, and third-party vendors.
- Vendor Evaluations: Review vendor proposals and technical responses against agreed scope and contractual requirements.
- Risk Guidance: Advise project and delivery managers on technical risks, dependencies, and decisions requiring escalation.
Experience
- 8+ years in enterprise IT, with at least 4 years as a Solution Architect, Technical Architect, or an equivalent role.
- Hands-on experience delivering API-led and system integration projects within enterprise or government environments.
- Practical background in business analysis, including requirements engineering and stakeholder management.
Technical Skills
- API Design: REST, OpenAPI/Swagger, JSON/XML, webhooks, and event-driven patterns.
- Integration & Security: Integration platforms, API gateways, and authentication/authorization protocols (OAuth2, SSO, UAE PASS, or similar).
- Cloud & Infrastructure: Cloud/infrastructure fundamentals (networking, environments, high availability, disaster recovery, and security architecture).
- Databases: Relational databases, SQL, and data mapping.
- Modeling & Tools: UML, BPMN 2.0, and sequence diagrams using tools such as Visio, Lucidchart, or Enterprise Architect.
- Methodologies: Agile delivery in Jira or Azure DevOps.
Certifications
- Mandatory: TOGAF Foundation
- Mandatory (At least one): AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Associate or above) OR Azure AZ-305
- Preferred: CBAP or PMI-PBA
Languages
- Arabic: Native or fluent (required for business and stakeholder communication).
- English: Fluent (business and technical).
Expected Behaviors & Mindset
- Clear Communication: Ability to explain technical risks to executive leadership/directors and communicate business requirements to engineers in plain language.
- Evidence-Based Pushback: Willingness to push back on weak designs using evidence and explicitly state assumptions as assumptions.
- Scope Discipline: Clear understanding of the difference between what was requested, what was agreed upon, and what is strictly in scope.
