Your role & work environment
Your role within the organisation is to define and maintain the architecture practice required to align the bank's capabilities with the evolving business needs, and to support and monitor the embedding and roll out of the architecture practice in the organization.
You work in the central architecture office team in staff of the chief architect of ING Group and are part of a virtual team of architects across all entities of the group performing a similar office function.
Your key responsibilities
Define and maintain the Architecture Practice
- You further develop and mature ‘’The agile architecture way of working’’, by harvesting and productising best practices from within the company and from the market;
- You facilitate the overall structuring and management of the architecture artefacts such as architecture frameworks, reference architectures, standards and guidelines, best practices, reusable building blocks, architecture decisions, solution architectures to increase reuse and to improve collaboration and alignment across Ing entities
- You ensure that the architecture practice is fully integrated in the overall agile way of working of the bank, and is aligned with the other disciplines in the bank;
- You work in close collaboration with your peers in the different architecture offices of the entities of the group, and you ensure the overall consistency.
Embed and roll out the Architecture Practice in the organization
- You ensure that the architect community and all architect stakeholders are aware of the current architecture practice, by organizing trainings, events and communication sessions, by publishing news items, by organizing the architect guild;
- You support the entities in rolling out and continuously improving their architecture practice
- You act as a consultant in matters of architecture methodology, processes, tools and best practices, you support and coach local architect craftsmanship leaders (architect chapter leads, change champions).
Monitor the Architecture Practice
- You set up a model and a tool to measure the maturity of the architecture practice;
- You support the assessment for each entity of the gap between the desired maturity and the actual maturity, and you propose improvement actions.
Facilitate Active Communication and Collaboration
- You facilitate active communication and collaboration across the architecture community
- You are the go to person for fellow architects who are in need, helping them to reach the relevant information and find their ways in the community.
We look for
A colleague with a talent for taking it on and making it happen, enthusiasm for helping others to be successful and a knack for always being a step ahead. In other words, you strive to bring fresh ideas to life and embrace challenges in a fast changing and complex environment. You are a naturally collaborative person with strong communication skills who listens and invests in others to achieve common goals. You love to challenge the status quo and are eager to propose creative solutions to problems.
As an EA Office Enterprise Architect you will also need:
Skills and competences
- Continuous improvement mind-set, strong focus on continuous learning for oneself, others and the organisation;
- Eager to train, coach and mentor and help other colleagues. Willingness to actively seek out and share knowledge;
- Self-disciplined, proactive and organized, with ability to identify what needs to be done;
- Ability to think in strategic (future-oriented) terms, even when you start as an architect;
- Ability to understand situations or problems, or to create new perspectives, in order to reach a decision;
- Ability to tune into the interests or level of discussion of your partner, to use arguments that appeal to your discussion partner, to present your arguments in measured doses at crucial moments.
- Ability to stick to your point of view when faced with resistance, without being dogmatic or rigid;
- Ability to stay abreast of developments in your own discipline;
- Ability to work together toward a common vision;
- Ability to take into account the interests of others and to empathize with other positions, to reach good collaboration;
Experience and specialised knowledge
- Experienced enterprise architect with a strong affinity towards architecture methodology;
- Experience working in large and complex organizations
- Experience with working in an agile environment.
Education and Professional certifications
- Master level or equivalent by experience;
- Good written and spoken knowledge of English.
