System Application Architect

Location: Western Europe
Start Date: ASAP
Duration: 12 months
On-site: Minimum 3 days per week (full-time)

Role Summary

The IT Architect for Software Engineering Services is responsible for designing and governing the architecture of a global software engineering ecosystem. This includes tooling and platforms supporting areas such as project management, DevOps, application security, source code management, CI/CD services, collaborative design tools, virtualization platforms, secure development environments, compute clusters, and generative AI systems.

This role combines enterprise-level architectural strategy with hands-on technical expertise required to shape modern engineering environments. It acts as a bridge between software R&D stakeholders, enterprise architecture teams, and global IT governance functions.

You will design scalable, secure, and resilient systems that support large engineering organisations, ensuring the engineering technology stack remains modern, integrated, and aligned with long-term strategic objectives.

Responsibilities

Architectural Strategy & Governance

Develop and maintain target architectures for software engineering platforms.

Evaluate the current engineering ecosystem to identify technology gaps, redundancies, and modernization opportunities.

Define architectural principles, design patterns, and governance mechanisms aligned with industry best practices.

Ensure architectural decisions support long-term scalability, cost efficiency, security, and maintainability.

Design integrations across developer platforms and engineering services.

Translate business needs and engineering workflows into clear technical architecture designs.

Oversee system integration to ensure consistency across engineering services and security domains.

Ensure engineering solutions comply with security requirements, data protection regulations, and identity & access management policies.

Act as a senior technical authority for engineering teams, advising on architecture, tooling, and technology decisions.

Communicate architectural decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Mentor DevOps and platform engineers on architectural best practices and support teams during architectural transitions.

Monitor industry trends (e.g., CI/CD modernization, AI-assisted development) to guide platform evolution.

Recommend new technologies based on business value, feasibility, and architectural fit.

Lead architectural reviews, proof-of-concept initiatives, and technical decision-making across engineering platform initiatives.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related field.

8+ years of experience in IT architecture, DevOps engineering, platform engineering, or large-scale system design.

Strong knowledge of developer tooling ecosystems (source control, artifact repositories, CI/CD platforms, collaboration tools).

Deep understanding of CI/CD architecture and engineering platform design.

Experience with virtualization, networking, storage, and distributed systems.

Experience with containerization technologies and orchestration platforms.

Experience working with generative AI systems and large language models, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures, and AI safety considerations.

Strong knowledge of architectural frameworks, systems design principles, and integration patterns.

Excellent communication, documentation, and cross-functional leadership skills.