ROLE SUMMARY
We are seeking a hands-on Senior Technical Lead & Solution Architect to anchor the technical direction of complex banking product and platform builds delivered to global financial institutions. The role blends deep engineering leadership with architecture ownership: setting technical standards, designing scalable and secure solutions, leading interface and API development, and steering agile squads through multi-wave delivery across both cloud and on-premises environments. The successful candidate has progressed from senior engineering into a mid-level architecture remit within IT services and/or banking product organisations, and is comfortable operating between code, design authority forums, and client-facing technical governance.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Solution & technical architecture — own end-to-end solution design for product and integration workstreams; produce HLDs/LLDs, component models, sequence flows and non-functional specifications; chair or contribute to design authority / architecture review boards.
Engineering leadership — lead technical squads (onshore/offshore) across the full SDLC; set coding standards, branching strategy, code-review discipline and definition-of-done; act as senior escalation point for technical risk.
Interfaces & API development — design and govern system-to-system interfaces and API contracts (REST/SOAP, event/streaming, file-based and messaging); own interface cataloguing, versioning, schema governance and backward-compatibility strategy.
Product engineering — drive feature engineering on core banking / transaction-banking products; balance configurability vs. customisation, manage technical debt, and uphold productisation principles for reusable, multi-tenant builds.
Agile delivery — run agile ceremonies as technical lead; translate epics into technical stories, estimate with the team, and protect velocity while maintaining quality gates and CI/CD discipline.
Cloud & on-premises deployment — architect for both cloud-native (containers, managed services, IaC) and on-premises data-centre topologies; address HA/DR, scalability, observability and environment management for each.
Non-functional & security — embed performance, resilience, scalability and security-by-design; partner with infosec on threat modelling, secure SDLC, secrets management and compliance to banking regulatory expectations (e.g. MAS TRM where applicable).
Client & stakeholder engagement — present designs and trade-offs to bank architecture teams, CIOs and technical SteerCos; defend decisions, manage dependencies and align on integration landscapes.
Mentorship — coach senior and mid-level engineers, conduct technical assessments, and raise the engineering bar across the delivery centre.
REQUIRED EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS
12–15 years in software engineering with demonstrable progression into a technical lead and mid-level architect role.
Proven experience across both IT services organisations and software product companies, with substantial exposure to the banking / financial services domain.
Track record of leading agile product engineering and complex systems integration / interface development for enterprise-grade platforms.
Hands-on delivery experience across both cloud and on-premises implementations.
Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent; recognised architecture certification (e.g. TOGAF) and/or relevant cloud certification is an advantage.
TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES
Domain
Required competencies
Architecture
Microservices & modular monolith design, domain-driven design, event-driven & layered architecture, API-first design, integration patterns, HLD/LLD, NFR & capacity planning
Languages & frameworks
Java / Spring Boot (core), with working knowledge of one or more of: J2EE, Node.js, .NET, Python; ORM/persistence frameworks
Interfaces & APIs
REST, SOAP, GraphQL (desirable), OpenAPI/Swagger, API gateways, ISO 20022 / SWIFT / MT-MX (banking interfaces), messaging (Kafka, MQ, JMS), file-based & batch integration
Data & persistence
Relational databases (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MS SQL), SQL tuning, schema design; exposure to NoSQL and caching (Redis)
Cloud & infrastructure
AWS / Azure / GCP (at least one in depth), containers (Docker, Kubernetes), Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/Helm), on-premises data-centre & VM topologies, HA/DR design
DevOps & quality
CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins/GitLab/Azure DevOps), Git branching strategy, automated testing, code quality (SonarQube), observability (logging, metrics, tracing)
Security & compliance
Secure SDLC, OAuth2/OIDC, TLS/PKI, secrets management, threat modelling, alignment to banking regulatory standards (MAS TRM, ISO 27001 awareness)
Agile & tooling
Scrum / SAFe / Kanban, story estimation, Jira/Confluence, technical backlog management
DESIRABLE / DIFFERENTIATORS
Domain depth in transaction banking, payments, trade finance, lending or treasury platforms.
Experience modernising or integrating with legacy core-banking systems.
Performance engineering and large-scale load/throughput optimisation.
Experience operating in regulated multi-country banking programmes with onshore/offshore delivery models.
