Senior Solution Architect (Ref: 198453)

Operating from Abu Dhabi since 1985, this financial institution provides personal and business banking services across retail banking, wealth management, commercial banking, corporate finance, investment banking, and cash management. The organisation supports a broad customer and business base through a complex, regulated technology landscape where dependable platforms, secure information flows, and scalable digital capabilities are essential to service continuity and growth. Its diverse banking portfolio creates a substantial environment for architectural innovation, operational resilience, and disciplined technology transformation.

The Senior Solution Architect will define and direct technology solutions for core banking sustenance projects and strategic platform initiatives. This position will translate business priorities, operational needs, and technology constraints into architectures that are secure, resilient, maintainable, and aligned with enterprise standards. Success will be measured through reliable delivery, stronger platform performance, effective integration, controlled technical risk, and architecture decisions that support the institution’s evolving banking services.

Working across business and technology functions, the role will provide senior technical leadership from assessment and design through implementation and transition into operations. The successful individual will guide architecture governance, challenge proposed approaches where appropriate, resolve complex technical issues, and maintain clear oversight of dependencies, delivery risks, quality, and stakeholder expectations. The remit also includes supporting modernisation, capacity planning, end-of-day processing improvements, regulatory obligations, and the continued resilience of a critical banking environment.

• Define end-to-end solution architectures for core banking enhancements, integrations, optimisation programmes, and related technology initiatives.
• Provide technical leadership for sustenance projects, ensuring proposed solutions address business objectives, operational resilience, security, performance, and maintainability.
• Assess existing platforms and designs to identify architectural constraints, technical debt, integration risks, and opportunities for modernisation.
• Lead architecture reviews and technical evaluations, documenting decisions, assumptions, dependencies, risks, and recommended actions.
• Work closely with business stakeholders, application teams, infrastructure specialists, database teams, security functions, and external technology partners.
• Direct the investigation and resolution of complex defects, recurring incidents, performance bottlenecks, and platform stability concerns.
• Contribute to capacity planning and end-of-day processing optimisation to sustain dependable service levels as transaction volumes and product requirements develop.
• Ensure solution designs support applicable banking controls, information security expectations, regulatory requirements, and internal governance standards.
• Monitor technical delivery against approved architecture, agreed milestones, quality criteria, and operational readiness requirements.
• Manage architectural risks, cross-project dependencies, escalation points, stakeholder communications, and decision-making throughout the delivery lifecycle.

• Extensive experience in solution architecture, enterprise technology delivery, or a comparable senior architecture discipline within banking or financial services.
• Proven background designing and governing solutions for core banking platforms or other high-availability financial systems.
• Strong understanding of application integration, data flows, infrastructure dependencies, system interfaces, and service resilience.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture reviews, technical assessments, design assurance, and structured remediation of complex issues.
• Practical experience with platform performance management, capacity planning, batch or end-of-day processing, and technology modernisation.
• Sound knowledge of technology risk, security principles, regulatory expectations, change governance, and operational control in a regulated environment.
• Capability to convert business requirements and operational challenges into clear, supportable, and commercially appropriate technical designs.
• Confidence coordinating senior stakeholders across business units, delivery teams, infrastructure, databases, vendors, and control functions.
• Strong project discipline covering planning, milestones, risks, dependencies, governance, documentation, quality, and transition to support.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex architectural choices to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• A senior architecture mandate with direct influence over platforms supporting a diversified banking and financial services portfolio.
• Exposure to complex core banking transformation, optimisation, integration, resilience, and regulatory technology priorities.
• Opportunity to work with senior business and technology stakeholders across retail, commercial, corporate, investment, and wealth-related services.
• A professionally demanding environment where architecture decisions have visible impact on service reliability, operational efficiency, and customer outcomes.
• Scope to contribute to modernisation initiatives while shaping sustainable standards for design, governance, and technical delivery.
• Access to a multidisciplinary technology ecosystem involving application, infrastructure, database, security, delivery, and specialist vendor teams.
• A competitive employment package aligned with the seniority and strategic importance of the position.
• Long-term professional growth through involvement in critical platforms and enterprise-wide technology priorities in Abu Dhabi.

The position is based in Abu Dhabi and carries responsibility for technology decisions within a highly regulated financial services setting. Candidates should be comfortable operating where availability, control, performance, and delivery discipline are equally important.

Experience with comparable banking platforms or complex transaction-processing environments will be valued, particularly where it includes architecture ownership, stakeholder leadership, and measurable improvements to resilience or operational efficiency. The role suits an experienced architect who can remain strategically focused while engaging confidently with detailed technical and delivery challenges.