Solution Architecture Lead

We're excited to be partnering with a leading institution in the UAE that is building a digital-first, AI-enabled financial services organisation from the ground up. This is a unique opportunity to join at an early stage and help shape the technology, integration, and AI foundations of a business with significant institutional backing and long-term ambition.As Solution Architecture Lead, you will be responsible for translating business and product requirements into scalable, secure, and deliverable solution designs across a modern technology landscape. Working closely with Architecture, Engineering, Data & AI, Product, and delivery partners, you'll play a key role in designing the platforms, integrations, and customer journeys that will underpin a next-generation financial services organisation.Key Responsibilities• Lead end-to-end solution architecture across applications, integrations, cloud, infrastructure, data, security, and business processes. • Design and deliver solutions across key domains including payments, channels, customer engagement, cards, treasury, and operational platforms.• Define integration patterns using APIs, event-driven architecture, streaming technologies, and emerging agent-based protocols. • Build working prototypes and proofs-of-value to validate architectural decisions and reduce delivery risk.• Work closely with engineering teams and system integrators to carry designs through implementation and into production. • Review and challenge vendor and partner solution designs to ensure alignment with architectural standards and business objectives. • Design secure, resilient, and highly available solutions with strong consideration for auditability, regulatory requirements, and operational resilience. • Contribute to AI-enabled solutions, including agentic workflows, AI-assisted processes, and intelligent automation where they create measurable business value.Required Experience8+ years in solution architecture within banking or financial services, with a track record of designs delivered to production, not just approved.Deep, practical grounding in solution architecture methodology and design practice — architecture views, decision records, non-functional requirements engineering, and trade-off analysis — applied consistently across complex, multi-vendor delivery.Solution design experience across core banking, payments, or treasury platforms, including working at implementation depth with system integrators and vendors.Strong grounding in modern architecture across infrastructure, platform, application, data, and security domains (Azure preferred): Kubernetes-based platforms, event-driven and API integration, zero-trust and identity patterns, resilience design.Experience in a regulated environment: designing for auditability and producing design evidence for reviews and regulatory engagements.A record of landing complex, contested design decisions with senior engineering, product, and vendor stakeholders in delivery-pressured environments.Demonstrable hands-on capability with the modern AI stack — LLM APIs, agent frameworks, and AI-assisted engineering tools — is highly valued and a genuine differentiator, though banking domain depth and solution architecture rigor take precedence over AI experience alone.Technical ProficienciesSolution architecture craft and methodology: end-to-end design across application, data, integration, infrastructure, security, and business process views; C4 model or 4+1 view practice; architecture decision records; non-functional requirements engineering; and structured trade-off analysis.Proficient on using architecture design and modelling tools for producing and maintaining design-as-code artefacts.Banking platforms: solution-level understanding of modern core banking systems, payment hubs, and treasury platforms and their integration surfaces.Integration design: event streaming, API design and management, schema and contract governance (OpenAPI/AsyncAPI/CloudEvents), agent integration protocols (MCP and comparable).Security architecture: zero-trust and identity patterns (human and non-human), threat modelling, data protection, and DevSecOps practice.Cloud and platform: Azure services, Kubernetes-based deployment, platform engineering and internal developer platforms, observability, and resilience/DR design.Modern data architecture: event and streaming data patterns, data platform/lakehouse design, and data contracts.AI solution engineering: LLM APIs and orchestration, agent frameworks, retrieval-augmented generation, prompt and context engineering, evaluation harnesses, and AI-assisted development tooling.Qualifications & Certifications (Preferred)Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline. (Required)Solution/enterprise architecture certifications. (Required)Demonstrated hands-on experience with architecture design and modelling tooling, as set out above. (Required)Master's degree or other advanced postgraduate qualification. (Preferred)Cloud solution architecture certification (e.g. Azure Solutions Architect Expert) and/or a security architecture certification (e.g. CISSP, SABSA). (Preferred)