Head, Solution Architecture & Standards Office

Job title : Head, Solution Architecture & Standards Office

About the Role

The Head, Solution Architecture & Standards Office owns the technology architecture, standards, and governance framework that ensures every development initiative across Polaris Bank's digital and retail banking arms is scalable, secure, and well-integrated. This is a leadership and governance role: you will set direction, define standards, and provide architectural oversight across three specialist domains „ Solution Architecture, Security Architecture, and Integration & API Architecture „ working through and with specialist architects and leads in each area, rather than executing all specialist work personally.

Key Responsibilities

Governance & Standards

• Define and maintain the enterprise architecture framework, technology standards, and design principles applied across all development initiatives
• Chair architecture review boards; approve or escalate designs that deviate from standards
• Own the technical governance process, ensuring traceability between business requirements and architectural decisions

Solution Architecture

• Oversee the design of end-to-end solutions for major business initiatives, ensuring architectural integrity, scalability, and alignment with enterprise standards
• Guide the application of microservices architecture, domain-driven design, and cloud architecture patterns across teams
• Ensure solution designs are maintainable and support long-term platform evolution

Security Architecture

• Set secure-by-design standards and oversee their application across all solution designs
• Ensure threat modeling, identity & access management design, and cryptographic standards are consistently applied
• Partner with Information Security to ensure architecture decisions meet regulatory and compliance requirements
• Oversee remediation of architecture-level vulnerabilities identified through security assessments

Integration & API Architecture

• Set standards for integration patterns, API design, API gateway usage, and middleware architecture
• Oversee API lifecycle governance to ensure consistency, reusability, and performance across the API portfolio
• Guide adoption of event-driven architecture patterns for high-throughput, real-time use cases

Core Competencies

• Enterprise architecture leadership and technical governance
• Working knowledge across solution, security, and integration architecture disciplines (deep expertise in at least one is expected; working fluency across the others to lead specialist teams credibly)
• Stakeholder management across engineering, security, product, and compliance functions
• Ability to translate business requirements into architectural strategy

Familiarity With Tools (used by the function, not a personal daily requirement)

Enterprise architecture tools (BizzDesign, Sparx EA), Draw.io/Lucidchart, Confluence, JIRA; OWASP tools, Burp Suite, IAM platforms; API gateways, Swagger/OpenAPI, Postman, Mulesoft, Apache Camel, Kafka, RabbitMQ

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; relevant certifications (TOGAF, AWS/Azure Architect, CISSP, or equivalent) an advantage
• Demonstrated track record leading architecture functions in a regulated industry, ideally banking/financial services