Senior Director & Solutions Architect

Overview:

We are seeking a strategic and technically hands-on Senior Director & Solutions Architect to lead a high-performing technology team of ~40 professionals. This role will be responsible for driving the development and execution of a modern, scalable, and forward-looking architecture that aligns with our business goals.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a cross-functional team of engineers, architects, and developers across multiple geographies.
• Define and drive the strategic technology architecture roadmap, ensuring alignment with business strategy and future growth.
• Serve as the principal architect for key enterprise solutions, overseeing design, integration, and scalability.
• Collaborate with senior business and technology stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Establish architectural standards and governance frameworks to drive consistency, quality, and reusability.
• Evaluate and implement modern technologies, tools, and platforms to enhance system performance and flexibility.
• Champion agile, cloud-first, and microservices-based design principles.
• Ensure the security, reliability, and performance of technology systems through best-in-class architecture practices.

Qualifications:

• 12+ years of progressive experience in technology leadership, including 5+ years in enterprise or solutions architecture roles.
• Proven track record of managing mid-sized technology teams and delivering complex system solutions.
• Deep expertise in cloud architectures (AWS, Azure, or GCP), API design, and modern software development practices.
• Strong understanding of enterprise integration patterns, data architecture, and platform scalability.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence across technical and business domains.

Purpose of the role

To manage the efficient delivery of large-scale technical projects and capabilities across the bank and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to understand their needs and expectations throughout the software product lifecycle, adhering to agreed time, budget and quality requirements. 

Accountabilities

• Management of the delivery, resource allocation and improvement of complex technical project capabilities across the bank using Agile/Scrum methodologies for planning, stand-ups, demos, retrospectives and the execution of sprints.
• Collaboration with customers and business teams to manage and implement customer trails to support the proposal of technically feasible solutions, and effort and timeline expectations.
• Collaboration with software engineers, quality teams, product managers and other engineering teams to deliver high-quality products and features through the software project lifecycle aligned to the banks objectives, regulation and security policies.
• Identification, assessment, and mitigation of risks associated with technical projects to prepare the bank for potential challenges.
• Management of change requests and communication with stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.
• Management of vendor relations involved in technical projects to ensure they deliver according to agreed terms.
• Stay abreast of the latest industry technology trends and technologies, to evaluate and adopt new approaches to improving deliver outcomes and to foster a culture of continuous learning, technical excellence and growth.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.