Solutions Architect

Job Title: Solutions Architect
Location: Pune

About Barclays
Barclays is a British universal bank. We are diversified by business, by different types of customers and clients, and by geography. Our businesses include consumer banking and payments operations around the world, as well as a top-tier, full service, global corporate and investment bank, all of which are supported by our service company which provides technology, operations and functional services across the Group.

Risk and Control Objective
Take ownership for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work you do.

Working Flexibly
We’re committed to providing a supportive and inclusive culture and environment for you to work in. This environment recognises and supports ways to balance your personal needs, alongside the professional needs of our business. Providing the opportunity for all our employees, globally to work flexibly empowers each of us to work in a way that suits our lives as well as enabling us to better service our customers’ and clients’ needs. Whether you have family commitments or you’re a carer, or whether you need study time or wish to pursue personal interests, our approach to working flexibly is designed to help you balance your life.  If you would like some flexibility, then please discuss this with the hiring manager, and your request will be reviewed subject to business needs

Hybrid Working 
Structured hybrid role:    
At Barclays, we offer a hybrid working experience that blends the positives of working alongside colleagues at our onsite locations, together with working from home.  We have a structured approach where colleagues work at an onsite location on fixed, ‘anchor’, days of the week, for a minimum of two days a week or more, as set by the business area (or nearest equivalent if working part-time hours). Please discuss the working pattern requirements for the role you are applying for with the hiring manager. Please note that as we continue to embed our hybrid working environment, we remain in a test and learn phase, which means that working arrangements may be subject to change on reasonable notice to ensure we meet the needs of our business.

Introduction 
The purpose of the role is carry out architecture on Payments Data Services projects, across business, information and technology architecture domains.  You will work closely with enterprise architects to ensure your architectures meet design principles and with development teams to ensure they understand the overall end to end architecture.  You will also work closely with business analysts, to ensure your architecture meets the business requirements and work with project managers, programme managers and scrum masters to ensure architectures are deliverable within the timescales.

What will you be doing?
•    Design the payments data strategy
•    Understand Payments landscape and build data solutions aligned to CTO and CDO principles. 
•    Lead PDS Architecture Capability and Manage Architecture within engineering team. 
•    Create strategy and vision for Payment Data Services products for payments landscape across cloud and on prem platforms
•    Provide consultancy for new initiative, to assist in the definition of business solutions or technical data strategies aligned to Payments
•    Produce design artefacts such as component landscapes, flow diagrams, word documents, confluence pages to help articulate key design decisions 
•    Produce Strategy and Visions & High Level End to End Design documents
•    Provide cost and effort estimates for data initiatives within Payments and look for innovative data solutions as per Payment core architecture
•    Solve unique and complex technical problems with broad impact on our key business areas as a whole to solve issues within Payments domain
•    Work with Payment architects and CTOs in the definition of product strategy and roadmaps
•    Collaborate with customers, project solution architects, business analysts and developers to turn business requirements into solution designs that meet the business needs while aligning with our technical data strategy for each application/product
•    Present complex data problems and solutions, both written and verbal, in commercial, business and technical language
•    Establish clear non-functional requirements (eg: capacity, availability response times etc)
•    Understand technical constraints of the environment and architecture, building this into the architecture
•    Review component designs to ensure compatibility with the architecture
•    Review test strategies to guarantee the quality of the delivered system and assist in the diagnosis of system problems encountered during end to end Payment System Integrated Testing
•    Ensure that technical quality standards are met, taking remedial action where there are quality shortfalls
•    Ensure that application monitoring and alerting is included in all system design
•    Complete technically complex assignment work to budget, time and quality requirements
•    Document all work in accordance with agreed standards, and with re-use in mind
•    Design data models as required as per data principles with sound knowledge of Payment domain
•    Where system development is part of a wider set of interdependent system changes, collaborate with the System Designers from other areas to ensure end to end technical integrity of the development
•    Senior stakeholder communication and relationship management, up to Director level
•    Actively participating in our agile delivery approach, engaging in sprint planning, backlog refinement and daily scrums as required
•    Engage with the Payments Innovation Agenda, bringing new ideas and creative solutions to our business
•    Own the technical solution and integrity of solution throughout the change lifecycle through to run phase

What we’re looking for:
•    Experience managing and leading architecture teams
•    Experience working to Managing Director level
•    Strong technical data knowledge - a very good broad understanding of a wide variety of technologies pertinent to Payment Data Services, including emerging technologies. (e.g. AWS, Java, Adaptive, and Responsive design, etc)
•    Strong stakeholder management - Able to challenge stakeholders creatively and professionally to create solutions which meet all of the above criteria but which are not necessarily obvious responses to pre-defined requests
•    Experience with IT Architecture - Familiar with integration and implementation issues and their architectural implications
•    Strong understanding of best practice architectural and design methods with proven innovative and leading edge thinking (e.g. Domain Driven Architecture, building for resilience, scalability, performance, etc)
•    Solution Development -  Able to create fit for purpose technology solutions which address the combined challenges of: meeting business need, deliverable within reasonable constraints, correspond to organisational strategic guidance
•    Exposure to multiple, diverse technologies and processing environments
•    Ability to define multiple solution options to business problems
•    Ability to quickly comprehend the functions and capabilities of new technologies
•    Strong understanding of network and data centre architecture, as well as application development methodologies
•    Previous experience of technology transformation projects
•    Qualification – engineering graduate (B.E. or B. Tech)

Skills that will help you in the role:
•    Solution architect and enterprise architect training and certification, e.g. TOGAF, BCS accreditation
•    Ability to influence and communicate effectively with senior stakeholders and staff in global locations with differing time-zones  
•    Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to write and present a range of written materials (presentations, briefings, reports) and to communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels in various global locations. 
•    An understanding of contemporary distributed software development, including:
•    Microservice / API-oriented architectures
•    Cloud
•    R/Python
•    Data Science/Engineering

Where will you be working?
Pune

Be More at Barclays
At Barclays, each day is about being more – as a professional, and as a person. ‘Be More @ Barclays’ represents our core promise to all current and future employees. It’s the characteristic that we want to be associated with as an employer, and at the heart of every employee experience. We empower our colleagues to Be More Globally Connected, working on international projects that improve the way millions of customers handle their finances. Be More Inspired by working alongside the most talented people in the industry, and delivering imaginative new solutions that are redefining the future of finance. Be More Impactful by having the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects, and Be More Valued for who you are.
Interested and want to know more about Barclays? Visit home.barclays/who-we-are/ for more details.
Purpose, Values and Mindset 
We deploy finance responsibly to support people and businesses, acting with empathy and integrity, championing innovation and sustainability, for the common good and the long term.
Our values underpin everything we do: Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship.
Respect
We harness the power of diversity and inclusion in our business, trust those we work with, and value everyone's contribution.
Integrity
We operate with honesty, transparency and fairness in all we do.
Service
We act with empathy and humility, putting the people and businesses we serve at the centre of what we do.
Excellence
We champion innovation, and use our energy, expertise and resources to make a positive difference.
Stewardship
We prize sustainability, and are passionate about leaving things better than we found them.

Our Mindset shapes how we take action, living by our Values, driven by our Purpose, always with our customers and clients at the heart of what we do; our Mindset is to Empower, Challenge and Drive.
Empower
Trust and support each other to deliver. Make decisions with those closest to the topic. Include diverse perspectives. Celebrate success and learn from failure.
Challenge
Question whether things can be done better. Use insights based on data to inform decisions. Be curious about how we can adapt and improve. Speak up and be open to alternative viewpoints.
Drive
Focus on outcomes. Deliver with pace. Be passionate and ambitious about what we do. Take personal responsibility. Actively build collaborative relationships to get things done.

#Software Engineering