The mission of the job:

The Architect translates (in close collaboration with the stakeholders) the strategic objectives of the company into a transformation roadmap and defines and owns End-to-End architecture and facilitates the realization of it by defining the guiding principles and framework(s), providing advice and insights to choose and design the best solution.

Key Roles & Responsibilities: 

1. Proactively translates (in close collaboration with the stakeholders) the strategic objectives of the company into a transformation roadmap and develops a long-term vision on the future of own domain in terms of modernization and rationalization and way of working, this taking into account the impact across the different domains companywide and market evolution and advocates this strategy towards relevant stakeholders.
2. Is responsible for the End-to-End architecture for an initiative/domain. Engages with all the stakeholders (internal and external) to define current and/or future requirements or problems. Applies a consistent approach and methodology to structurally establish and maintain the sustainable architecture of the assigned domain.
3. Translates the business/functional requirements into possible solution alternatives and advises the stakeholders on how to best realize an “initiative” or “epic” from an architecture point of view taking into consideration the Total Cost 
of Ownerhsip (TOC). Helps to elaborate what constitutes an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for an initiative/domain, taking into account various criteria (e.g. complexity, risk, time, cost, maintainability, …). Ensures that a proper plan is in place to be able to scale up which limits any technical debt incurred to deliver the MVP.
4. Refines the architecture, validates epics against the definition of ready and assures that they can be elaborated further, by defining the critical non-functional requirements (e.g. privacy, performance, data compliance, stability & availability), determining the essential steps (such as e.g. migration plans, processes, frameworks, tooling, blueprints and/or migration paths) that should be taken to complete these initiatives successfully.
5. Conveys the architecture/solution to the relevant team(s) to enable the successful implementation. Follows-up on the application of the intended architectural design and principles while the solution is being built. Guides and verifies choices made in the build phase that lead to a coherent system. If applicable, validates the implementation of the architecture and/or tests it.
6. Develops and manages an architectural repository for a domain (application, data, and business) including the relations and dependencies of other domains and creates the framework for documentation purposes.

Job Description

Knowledge & Skills:

• Has strong insights into the mission, objectives, way of working and products of the company and its various business units.
• Keeps up to date with the relevant technology(s), applications and systems both technically and functionally. Maintain and broaden this knowledge in order to be able to make well-founded recommendations on how technologies can be deployed.
• Has expertise to correctly map business needs, translating these into a verifiable hypothesis and technically working out how to validate these.
• Has ability to think and act conceptually/process-oriented and has the ability to visualize and create high-level models that can be used in future analyses and to extend further development and architecture.
• Is able to think business-oriented (with insights from telecom, engineering) and combine solutions to offer the best in architecture design.
• Has extensive experience in designing End-to-End cross-departmental solutions.
• Is fluent in use of standard architecture methodology, relevant industry standards and specific technique/language.
• Analytical mindset to substantiate the decisions.
• Problem Solving: Describe the nature and complexity of the problems this position encounters on a recurring basis. Include information regarding the level of innovation required, if any, and include mention of environmental factors that may add to the complexity of resolving issues.
• Designs the high-level solution and/or possible solution alternatives for projects and improvement initiatives, in line with the vision and paying attention to efficiency, implementability; reusability and this according to the design principles that ensure an optimal user experience.
• Actively supports building a stable roadmap with a horizon for the coming years and ensure the first impact analysis for the various initiatives.
• Acts as an (architecture) leader within his/her domain and supervises the development, implementation, testing and release of initiatives. 
• Provides insights to facilitate decision making and setting priorities.
• Identifies and tracks relevant developments and applicable legislation/standards changes within the established (sub)domain and informs the stakeholders about this.
• Defines the MVP and industrialization within the framework of the application domain vision and architectural principles. 
• Refines, determines the essential steps, validates and adjusts the architecture/processes to an implementable level as agreed with the stakeholders.
• Nature & Area of Impact: To what degree does this job affect the business (i.e., through interactions with customers, making decisions, defining or setting strategy, etc.)? What is the breadth of the impact that this job has, either positive or negative (i.e., affects own team, department, function, business unit, geography, entire business, etc.)?
• Identifies and translates (future) business needs into a strategic transformation roadmap & architectural principles, taking into account planning and timing aspects, making maximum use of technological innovation, reducing technical debt, promoting reuse and aligning with relevant industry standards, market evolutions and European/national regulations.
• Autonomously builds a solution design, in line with the different needs and design principles and aligns the solution with all stakeholders. 
• Assists the stakeholders in transforming the requirements into an implementation, including the design, alternative solutions and test scenarios.
• Ensures maximum alignment between the vision and the various initiatives and between the stakeholders. 
• Supports the go/post-live of the implementations and provides coaching and user support regarding the architecture components. 
• Provides advice to the stakeholders on technical aspects related to formulating an solution and prioritizing epics in their backlog. Emphasizing simplicity, feasibility and potential for reuse.
• Guides the choice of the preferred scenario by clarifying and communicating with senior leadership on what the impact of an initiative could be and explaining the benefits of relevant alternatives.

Interactions / Interpersonal Skills: 

• Is able to work closely with all stakeholders and involve them as much as possible.
• Develops a holistic view of complex and comprehensive systems, while having sufficient insights into the details to be able to communicate with the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), customers and technical experts. To do this, he/she needs to translate the message into simple models that are understandable to a broad and diverse audience.
• Acts as a sparring partner who will analyze and elaborate future initiatives, aligns and defends the vision of the assigned domain/department in the concept phase of these initiatives.
• Diplomatically seek for the best solution, taking into account the views of all stakeholders and consequences for the ompany.
• Argues the choices for certain solutions from all relevant perspectives.
• Participates in cross-departmental initiatives.
• Acts as mentor and coach for the internal and external stakeholders.
• Engages with all stakeholders to refine the epics (functional/non functional) and coach them in delivering an emergent design. 
• Promotes new contacts with organizations within the telecom industry.

Cultural fit

Values: 
1. Say what’s what
2. Your passion is contagious
3. We work better together
4. We are close
5. We set things in motion

Critical Competencies: 
1. Learning agility
2. Resilience
3. Can do mentality

What is needed to reach success in this job:

Minimal Requirements; need to have at the start of the function: 

• Engineer/Master of Science degree and minimum 5 years of relevant experience.
• ENG, NL or FR
• Experience in translating business needs into End-to-End solutions in a large and complex environment.
• General knowledge of the life cycle of system and software development.

Nice to have; skills will be developed in the first months in the function: 

• Experience in a process-oriented function in a telecom environment.
• Agile way of working experience. 
• Technical knowledge of the relevant platforms, methodology and standards, such as: TOGAF, Zachman framework, DOCSIS, 3GPP & IETF, Enterprise Application & Integration Patterns, and technical models (Archimate, TMForum eTOM & SID), along with company specific models and concepts to communicate efficiently on proposed solutions