Principal Architect-Applications

1. ROLE PURPOSE & OBJECTIVE

The Principal Architect, Applications is a strategic leadership role responsible for defining and driving the evolution of the Bank's application architecture, managing the design and development of software applications, incorporating desired functionalities into application design plans and overseeing application development stages. This role requires a visionary leader with deep technical expertise, strong business acumen, and the ability to influence and collaborate across the organization. The Principal Architect will ensure the application portfolio is aligned with business strategy, promotes innovation, and delivers exceptional user experiences.

1. KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE ROLE

Business

• Develop and champion the Bank's application architecture strategy, aligning it with business goals and the overall technology roadmap.
• Anticipate future technology trends and their potential impact on the Bank's application portfolio, proactively identifying opportunities and challenges.
• Lead the development and implementation of a comprehensive application roadmap, outlining key initiatives, timelines, and resource requirements.
• Foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the application development teams, encouraging exploration of new technologies and approaches.
• Design and architect complex application solutions that meet the Bank's business needs, ensuring scalability, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Lead the evaluation and selection of application development platforms, frameworks, and tools.
• Oversee the implementation of new application solutions, working closely with development teams to ensure seamless deployment and integration.
• Develop and maintain architecture documentation, including high-level designs, detailed specifications, and API documentation.
• Establish and enforce architecture governance processes to ensure compliance with standards and best practices.
• Define and promote the use of design patterns, reusable components, and microservices architecture.
• Assess the existing application portfolio and identify opportunities for rationalization, modernization, and optimization.
• Develop and implement a strategy for migrating legacy applications to modern platforms and architectures.
• Manage the application lifecycle, from inception to retirement, ensuring proper governance and documentation at each stage.
• Define and implement the Bank's API strategy, enabling seamless integration between internal and external systems.
• Design and develop APIs that are secure, scalable, and well-documented.
• Establish API governance processes to ensure consistency and quality.
• Promote the adoption of API-first development practices.

Customer

• Provide thought leadership and guidance on application architecture to senior management and other stakeholders.
• Collaborate effectively with business stakeholders, product managers, and development teams to understand their application needs and requirements.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly and concisely to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Liaise with subject matter experts to drive compliance of the APIs with prescribed internal and external standards.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key vendors and partners.
• Represent the Bank's application architecture interests in industry forums and conferences.

Internal Process

• Define and maintain the enterprise architecture framework for applications, establishing standards, best practices, and guiding principles.
• Establish metrics to track the performance and health of the application portfolio.
• Review and formulate SLA/Policies/Processes relevant to Database management and supervise compliance to such policies.
• Test and review the BCP plan on a half-yearly basis to assess the agility of the system to meet user needs in the event of a disaster scenario. Liaise with IT Database, Infrastructure, and IT Security teams to promote seamless IT functioning as a single unit.
• Design and implement security measures to protect the Bank's applications from cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
• Ensure compliance with relevant industry regulations and security standards
• Collaborate with the security team to develop and maintain security policies and procedures for applications.
• Participate in security assessments and penetration testing.

Learning & Performance

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to the application development teams, fostering their professional development and growth.
• Set performance expectations and provide regular feedback to team members.
• Identify training and development opportunities to enhance the team's skills and expertise.
• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the application portfolio.
• Regularly report on application performance, availability, and security metrics to senior management.

• Analyze performance data to identify areas for improvement and optimization.

• MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

Educational

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field.
• Post-graduate qualification is preferred.

Experience

• 10-18 years of experience in banking IT or any relevant fields

Certifications

• Salesforce Cloud, HTML5, UX/UI principles

Functional Skills

• Experience in frontend technologies including ReactJS, AngularJS, Webpack, RequireJS, Bootstrap, Materialise, jQuery, Gulp, JSON, Java script, html5, CSS, etc.
• Experience with HTML5, CSS, Responsive web design, and UX/UI principals
• Working proficiency with development tooling. ESLint, Storybook, webpack, etc
• Advanced knowledge of software development methodologies. FP, OOP, etc
• Experience with Automated testing. Bonus: Cypress and Browserstack
• Proficient with key DevOps tools including Jenkins, Maven, Gradel, Docker, XLRelease, JFrog, Git, JIRA, Bitbucket
• Experience in AWS services and serverless technologies including EC2, ECS, ECR,
• S3, Lambda, Terraforms, Cloud Formation, Glue Catalog, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, SQS, SNS, IAM, DynamoDB, Kinesis, KMS, EMR, Elastic Search, etc
• Efficient with common styling libraries including Chakra, Styled Components, mui, etc.

Behavioral Skills

• Critical thinking and problem-solving skills
• Planning & Organizing
• Leadership skills
• Strong communication skills
• Team work
• Negotiation skills

Competencies

• Initiative
• Problem-solving ability.
• Evaluate options & priorities.
• Analytical thinking

• Compliance and governance

• KEY INTERACTIONS

INTERNAL

EXTERNAL

• IT applications
• Internal IT teams
• CISO team
• PMO

• Audit, Compliance, Risk Teams

• Regulatory Authorities

• Vendors and Consultants
• External Auditors