Principal Enterprise Architect

HISCOX is an international insurer specialized in the market of luxury goods & property, and high-end professional insurance. As experts in risk, we give people and businesses the confidence to realise their ambitions. With offices in 9 European countries, we have a very international staff and encourage a culture that fosters inclusion and collaboration, offering exciting opportunities for personal and professional growth.

The Role:

As a key member of Hiscox Architecture function as the Principal Enterprise Architect, you will be responsible for leading the architecture decisions and helping shape and promote the architecture roadmaps and standards/principles supported by Hiscox Tech Radar, that will help drive the modernisation of the organisation. This position requires experience at an enterprise practice level to enable the governance of design and delivery against those standards, providing leadership to drive connected experiences. Understanding business requirements, working with Business/Technology leaders, fellow Enterprise Architects and end users to develop and take a proposed solution to delivering live connections. The role is still very much in the detail so as well as the strategic aspect of the role, being involved with the business and the detail is key. We would also consider candidates from a strong Solution Architecture background making their first steps into EA.

Key Responsibilities:

• Setting and maintaining the Hiscox enterprise architecture approach and strategy, creating innovative and actionable plans, guiding and contributing to current projects and programmes to measure effectiveness of programs and return of investment goals.

• Accountable for specifying technical standards and patterns that assist in developing a secure, scalable governance and operating model

• Selecting technologies within a layered domain architecture to meet information technology and business requirements.

• Design standards, frameworks, and processes to support and facilitate projects for the enterprise

• Create the high-level architecture strategy and guide implementation teams on the choice of components, standards and patterns to use in the design and implementation phases

• Providing effective and proactive support and expertise to programmes and projects, ensuring that solution design is consistent and aligned with the architectural integration approach and roadmap, optimising solution delivery and business benefits

• Providing support in the creation and implementation of transition architectures, ensuring solutions are migrated and delivered in line with Enterprise Architecture approach and roadmap

• Interpret and contextualise business requirements into scalable and manageable solution and design specifications that align with the overall business vision

• Advise technical teams on performance, scalability, reliability, monitoring and other operational concerns over integration solutions on the live platforms

• Works closely with Solution Architecture/Designers to ensure consistency and quality of solutions and knowledge sharing

• Lead, advocate and drive adoption of “best practices” to ensure the standardisation of integration architecture outputs across the enterprise architecture function through the architecture governance processes and bodies (Architecture Review Board and Technical Design Authority)

• Document and maintain all architectural artefacts and provide support to all business and assemble all system components.

• Manage engagement with 3rd Party entities (vendors/partners/consultancies), where necessary, through RFI and/or RFP processes or any other Hiscox approved process

• Play a pivotal role in the formulation of short/medium/long term Enterprise Architecture strategies and ensure their alignment with and effective support of Hiscox strategic business objectives

Person Specification:

• 5+ years at a Solution Architecture or an Enterprise Architecture role coupled with extensive senior stakeholder engagement experience and business administration and commercial/financial awareness and proven approaches to requirements soliciting and requirements prioritising in line with business strategic objectives

• Experience integrating with Cloud/SaaS applications, APIs and legacy applications with a strong understanding on how integration has evolved towards being a digital, cloud and API-driven capability

• Experience with the evaluation and selection of new technologies based on the supplied requirements including managing proof of concepts or ‘spikes’ to validate if a considered technology is capable of delivering against the requirements

• Worked in mixed vendor multi-cloud environments

• Good communication skills, including the ability to communicate to both technical and business stakeholders in plain language

• Team management, coaching and mentoring and leveraging teams’ competencies/capabilities across the enterprise architecture function

• Qualified to degree level or possessing the relevant professional experience and working knowledge of core enterprise architecture domains with particular focus on cloud-based architectures

• Experience of developing enterprise-wide architectures within an Enterprise Architecture Framework, e.g. TOGAF would be an advantage

• Operational processes efficiency improvements through automation and process design/redesign and advantage

• IT cost optimisations through Enterprise Applications Rationalisation Programmes an advantage

• Knowledge and experience of build, deployment, change and release processes and automation an advantage.

Why Hiscox?

• Healthy work-life balance with our 35h/week and hybrid working system.

• Holidays: 25 days + 2 Hiscox Days (Extra two Annual Leave).

• Health insurance, gym allowance, pension plan etc.

• After 5 years work 1-month sabbatical leave.

• Team spirit with many opportunities to engage and an open culture.