Senior Solutions Architect

Senior Solutions Architect

Country: United Kingdom

This role is for a Senior Solutions Architect in the cards domain, supporting our migration from a legacy card processing system to Plard, a group cards system.

Join Our Community:

An exciting opportunity has opened to join the Payments & Cards architecture team as a Solution Architect. This is an ideal time to be part of the payments technology team as we transform our operations alongside the Payments Centre of Excellence and key suppliers like PagoNxt to meet evolving customer expectations and industry changes.

The Solutions Architecture team, part of the domain architecture team within Santander UK, collaborates closely with other architecture teams and liaises with business and IT colleagues in both Santander UK and Global Architecture. The team focuses on the functional architecture of applications and their interactions within the Architecture Landscape of Santander UK, Group, and third parties, sharing reusable patterns and solutions across domains.

We are building a motivated team with big goals and seek individuals passionate about technology and payments. If you share our enthusiasm, join us and make a difference!

The difference you will make:

Be embedded into the functional domain, balancing business requirements with functional & technical strategy to ensure we deliver sustainable solutions. 

• Produce functional architectures for projects and review designs produced by engineering teams using provided guidance and patterns.
• Validate that solutions align with the strategies of Santander UK and Group.
• Work with the engineering community to deliver solutions.

What you will bring:

We are looking for candidates with extensive cards domain expertise who can demonstrate significant experience of solution architecture:

• Extensive knowledge and experience in cards processing, covering capabilities like issuing and acquiring, clearing and authorization, disputes, and card management.
• Significant experience in architecture design, defining, and documenting pragmatic architectures that balance business requirements with functional and technical strategy. Experience working with stakeholders to define and deliver strategic objectives and roadmaps.
• Passionate about driving and leading change by creating practical, workable architectures aligned with IT principles and appropriate governance.
• Knowledge of planning and organizing concepts and best practices, with the ability to manage multiple projects. A flexible, ‘can do’ attitude with strong initiative and fast learning capability. Experience in line management or team leadership.

It Would Also Be Nice for You to Have:

• Working knowledge of the BIAN framework, TOGAF, ArchiMate, and the C4 model. Experience using architecture tools like Avolution Abacus.
• Knowledge and experience of AWS, cloud architectures, APIs, and microservices.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities:

• Produce and document solution designs, manage stakeholders, and take designs through governance processes.
• Act as the team leader for the solution architecture team in cards, which includes two to three people. This involves reviewing and mentoring to enhance design quality and supporting team members in the governance process.
• Work with key stakeholders, including the Enterprise Architect for cards, the Head of Cards Technology, business strategists, and Plard stakeholders, to ensure alignment with strategic objectives.
• Collaborate with SMEs, engineering teams, business, and project managers to deliver projects and designs.

What else you need to know:

We want our people to thrive at work and home, and we recognise that many people benefit from flexible arrangements. To enable us to deliver the best outcomes for our customers and to help each other develop we understand the importance of having the right balance of spending time together in an office while maintaining flexibility.
 

By working this way, we can continue to create moments that matter for everyone. To support this, we offer site-based contracts with a hybrid working pattern and we’re happy to discuss specific requirements throughout the recruitment process.

This role is based in Milton Keynes and our current expectation is at least 3 days in an office every week

Career Progression:

This role offers opportunities for progression to head of architecture or enterprise architecture roles. It provides a chance to lead significant transformation projects and contribute to the evolving architecture landscape of Santander UK.

If you are passionate about technology and payments and ready to take on a leadership role in a transformative environment, we encourage you to apply. Join our community and help shape the future of Santander UK.

How we’ll reward you.

As well as a competitive salary, you’ll enjoy a benefits package that you can tailor to your needs.

• Eligible for a discretionary performance-related annual bonus.
• We put 8% of salary into your pension, even if you don’t contribute yourself. We’ll pay in up to 12.5% of salary, if you contribute as well, and you can take some of our contribution in cash if you prefer.
• 30 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, which increases to 31 days after five years service, with the option to purchase up to five contractual days per year.
• £6,000 car allowance per year.
• Company funded individual private medical insurance.
• Voluntary healthcare benefits at discounted rates such as private medical insurance for your family, dental insurance, healthcare cash plan and health assessments.
• Benefits supporting you and your family, such as death-in-service benefit, income protection, and voluntary life assurance and critical illness cover.
• Share in Santander’s success by investing in our share plans. 
• As a Santander UK employee, you are able to request staff versions of our products like our Edge Current Accounts and Credit Cards with no fees, as well as apply to many other deals and discounts in Santander products and services

Learn more about our benefits and family friendly policies

#ThePlaceToBeYourself – Everyday Inclusion at Santander

We are committed to making sure all our colleagues feel they belong and are supported to succeed. Our customers come from a wide range of backgrounds, and so do our people, so we welcome applications from across society.

You can find out more about how we’re embedding an inclusive culture that encourages our people to bring their full and authentic selves to work on our Inclusion and Belonging page.

A bit more about Santander

At Santander we’re driven by our purpose - to help people and businesses prosper. This means we help customers to create change for themselves and those around them, and we champion businesses to grow sustainably. We do this by always living our values of Simple, Personal and Fair.

At Santander, we each take personal responsibility for managing risk by embracing the I AM Risk framework - to Identify, Assess, Manage and Report risks, and to continuously build a deeper understanding of the risks we face. It is an important part of our culture at Santander, and we will provide you with knowledge to help you manage risks in your role.

What to do next: -

If this sounds like a role you’re interested in, then please apply.

Why not join our talent community where we’ll keep you updated with all the latest news and job information? Simply register your details on our careers site, ‘Join our Talent Community’.

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