Enterprise Digital Architect

Let's Write Africa's Story Together!

Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

The key focus for the enterprise digital architect is to perform enterprise architecture strategy and planning aligned to business objectives, build and participate in architecture capability building, perform enterprise and solution architecture and design management, investigate and adopt technology architecture trends, manage architecture risk and compliance, provide design and build governance and support and communicate and share knowledge around the architecture practices, guardrails, blueprints and standards.
The Enterprise Architect is expected to simplify complexity, challenge legacy thinking, and create clarity across business and technology domains while enabling effective delivery on the given cloud and technology platforms

IT Strategy and Planning

• Developing and aligning IT Strategies and Programmes to business objectives

• Defining Strategic Runway Themes

• Develop required architecture roadmaps containing target and transition landscapes

• Provide input into investment planning for the relevant landscape

• Aligning architecture roadmaps and runways to business planning and investments

• Define key architecture runway initiatives to be delivered for the intentional architecture

• Participate into business planning, costing and business case definition related to architecture initiatives

• Ensure architecture artefacts are lightweight, consumable, and decision-focused rather than shelfware.

• Guide and mentor embedded architects and engineers to uplift architectural maturity

Architecture Capability and Design Management

• Develop and maintain the enterprise architecture views and viewpoints

• Maintain the artifacts in the set enterprise repository aligned to the rest of the architecture

• Manage the architecture processes based on the requirements for each architype

• Manage change impact of the architecture with stakeholders

• Build the architecture practice with embedded architects and engineers including the relevant methods, repository and tools

• Manage the architecture across business, application, information and data as well as technology

• Participate in the architecture practice development

Technology Research and Assessments

• Review trends with regards to the technology domain and technologies related to business capabilities

• Determine feasibility of these technologies in the organisational landscape

• Innovate with teams to determine more optimal approaches

• Conduct proof-of-concepts where options have been evaluated and considered feasible to explore

• Product and technology selection options, business case definition and sourcing evaluations

Risk, Governance and Compliance

• Identify and mitigate risks with stakeholders associated with a technology decision, design and implementation

• Ensure that architectures comply with the relevant policies, standards and regulations

• Conduct and participate in architecture reviews

• Integrate with other governance and compliance functions to ensure continuity in managing the investment and risk for the organisation

• Driving principles, practices, guardrails and standards within Centres of Enablement

• Maintain a decision register aligned to the enterprise governance on architecture decisions taken

• Maintain an authoritative architecture decision register aligned to enterprise governance

Implementation Guidance and Collaboration

• Provide standards, guidance, guardrails, frameworks and tools to deliver effectively

• Collaborate with the delivery teams to share knowledge and to ensure the architecture objectives are achieved.

• Manage deviations with teams to reduce the risk to the organisation

• Drive or assist in the determine of the architecture options and selections

• Provide technical specialisation knowledge and experience into the solution design and build implementation

• Update architecture after programme increments (Pis)

Communication and Knowledge Sharing

• Communicate the up-to-date views for the architecture

• Communicate and collaborate the relevant standards, practices, guardrails and tools to stakeholders

• Ensure that IT teams are well informed or trained in the respective architecture requirements

• Communicate and collaborate with stakeholders' relevant views on planning, technology assessments, risk, compliance, governance and project assessments

• Drive or participate in the relevant Centres of Excellence (CoEs)

• Communicating technology vision and roadmap aligned to the business strategy

• Participate in the architecture collaboration forums

• Operate effectively in an agile delivery environment, balancing intentional architecture with emergent design

Technology and Platform Expectations

• The Enterprise Architect is expected to be fluent in modern cloud-native platforms and architectural patterns, including:

• Deep architectural experience with AWS in multi-account, regulated environments

• Strong understanding of AWS Well-Architected Framework

• AWS core services (VPC, IAM, EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, S3, RDS, DynamoDB)

• Integration and messaging patterns (API Gateway, EventBridge, SNS, SQS)

• Observability and operational patterns (logging, monitoring, alerting)

• Security and compliance services (KMS, Secrets Manager, GuardDuty, Config)

• DevSecOps and CI/CD concepts at architectural level

• Infrastructure as Code concepts (Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK)

• Cost-aware architecture design informed by FinOps principles

DECISION OWNERSHIP AND AUTHORITY

The Enterprise Architect:

• Owns and curates enterprise-level architectural decisions and guardrails

• Has authority to approve, reject, or conditionally approve architecture designs

• Acts as an escalation point for cross-domain architectural conflicts

• Ensures architectural decisions are documented, durable, and respected over time

KEY OUTCOMES EXPECTED

• Clear, actionable architecture roadmaps that influence funding and prioritisation

• Reduced architectural rework and technical debt

• Earlier identification and mitigation of technology and delivery risks

• Strong alignment between business strategy, technology investment, and execution

• Improved architectural maturity across teams, reducing reliance on centralised control

Line Management Responsibility

This role is responsible for building and leading a high-performance architecture team.

• Performance Management

• Talent Stewardship

• Feedback and Development

• Recruitment and Selection

• Compensation and Benefits

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE (REQUIRED FOR THE JOB)

• Matric

• Degree or diploma in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering OR relevant diploma / degree

• Experience: Requires a minimum of 5 years in a senior technology role with a proven track record in architecture/design and a minimum of 10-15 years relevant IT experience

• Preferable experience: 10 years architecture experience

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE (PREFERRED, NOT A REQUIREMENT)

• TOGAF

• ArchiMate

• Cloud Certifications (AWS, Azure)

• Financial Industry Experience

COMPETENCIES REQUIRED

• Critical thinking/problem solving

• Security-by-design and risk-aware architecture thinking

• Financial awareness of technology and cloud cost drivers

• Teamwork/collaboration

• Effective Communication Skills

• Leadership skills

• Knowledge and experience in architecture domains

• Knowledge and experience in architecture methods, frameworks and tools

• IT Strategy and Planning

• Architecture and Design (Business, Application, Information/Data, Technology)

• Agile Knowledge and Experience

• Cloud Knowledge and Experience

Skills

Action Planning, Adaptive Thinking, Business Requirements Analysis, Current State Assessment, Data Compilation, Data Controls, Executing Plans, Gap Analysis, IT Architecture, IT Implementation, Market Analysis, Policies & Procedures, Product Development, Readiness Assessments, User Experience (UX) Design

Competencies

Business InsightCollaboratesCultivates InnovationDecision QualityEnsures AccountabilityManages ComplexityNimble LearningOptimizes Work Processes

Education

NQF Level 9 – Masters

Closing Date

12 March 2026 , 23:59

The appointment will be made from the designated group in line with the Employment Equity Plan of Old Mutual South Africa and the specific business unit in question.

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