Enterprise Architect

Company Description

The British Airways (BA) Architecture & Engineering team is part of BA Digital within the International Airlines Group (IAG), one of the world’s leading airline groups and owner of some of the biggest brands in the sky.

Our vision is to delight customers, enable our colleagues, accelerate business performance, increase shareholder value, and protect our business through the innovative and agile use of technology and data to become the most trusted digital airline. 

To harness our full potential across BA Digital, we are changing fundamentally our ways of working by transitioning at speed into a Product led organisation.

Together we are building a better BA (British Airways)

Job Description

As an Enterprise Architect, you will be working as part of a small team of enterprise architects to govern the strategic architecture across BA Digital

Purpose of the role

• Develop architecture strategy by defining a strategic vision for the organization's IT architecture, aligned to business goals and objectives and maintain an enterprise architecture roadmap that outlines the evolution of the organization's technology landscape over time.
• Define solutions to complex business problems using a wide range of artefacts, methods and tools and uses expertise and knowledge within a specific area to meet business requirements aligned with the overall architecture.
• Facilitate the structuring of business problems to ensure functional and non-functional requirements are clearly understood, aligned with business objectives and are traceable in the technical solution design. During the implementation phase, ensures any deviations from the agreed solution and risks are managed with the project to deliver a successful outcome.
• Maintain a view of business and technical capabilities and existing systems across their area ensuring technical integrity and alignment with business requirements and recommend improvements or modifications to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. 
• Identification and execution of continual improvement opportunities, ensuring the best outcomes for BA, driving optimal solutions through the implementation of the architecture roadmaps.
• Management of key supplier relationships, ensuring the quality of supplier deliverables meets BA Digital standards and fit with strategic business requirements on a continuing basis.
• Identify opportunities to work across BA Digital to underpin the successful delivery of major initiatives.

Accountabilities

Working in partnership with BA Digital and the business to:

• Provide technical leadership across a number of business or technical domains and the expertise to drive forward solutions, ensuring alignment with the business and technical strategic vision and goals.
• Define, implement and operate processes, controls and governance framework to govern the firm’s enterprise architecture and manage and control any changes.
• Provide expertise to the Business, Heads of Delivery, Technical Area Leads etc. and their teams in relation to all aspects of Enterprise Architecture
• Ensure that technology solutions comply with regulatory requirements, industry standards, and internal policies by developing and maintaining architectural assets to support decision making and requests for information including from the regulator.
• Collaborate with Architects in their immediate and wider areas to ensure solutions are fit for purpose and aligned with business, enterprise architecture and strategic direction.
• Ensure all enterprise architecture activity across their area is aligned with policies and standards and roadmaps with a focus on consistency and efficiency of approach ensuring a balance between quality, cost and timescales. Identifies and resolves any potential non-compliance.
• Recognise opportunities for business or IT change, communicate them persuasively to appropriate stakeholders with support from the Lead Solution Architect.
• Follow the agreed methods and tools for architecture and promote and support these. 
• Communicate and negotiate with all relevant stakeholders (both business and IT) to ensure a balance of usability and fit with the enterprise architecture with support from the Lead Solution Architect.
• Conduct technical reviews of product designs and produce regular and relevant metrics to drive improvements.
• Support strategic supplier relationships where third-party work or packages involve significant architectural decisions.

This role may require some travel and working from multiple sites/locations within UK and internationally. You must be willing and able to travel to participate in meetings, workshops and other related activities.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience

Desired Qualification

• Recognised architecture qualification desirable.
• TOGAF level 1, or other Enterprise Architecture certification desirable

Skills

• Have a solid grasp and the ability to understand and select various architecture and application deployment patterns, such as SOA, microservices, event-driven, layered models, and so on.
• Strong expertise in creating conceptual designs for business cases, as well as high-level design documentation.
• Demonstrates clear leadership and an ability to form strong stakeholder relationships at all levels of the organization with a proven ability of influencing and persuading internally and externally at senior levels, guiding by example and aligning stakeholder groups around a common vision.
• Strong communication skills to present Enterprise Architectural thinking regarding approaches to rationalisation, modernisation and IT innovation, drawing on market research and emerging technology approaches.
• Complex problem solving with an ability to resolve conflict and identify best-fit solutions to challenges encountered.
• Business partnering, working collaboratively as a valued partner with senior stakeholders across a diverse operation, delivering a value-added service to business customers and balancing and finding compromises between opposing views and opinions.
• Ability to recognise priorities and guide others towards the accomplishment of strategic business goals and objectives.
• Embracing and managing both business and IT change as necessary to help shape future direction.
• Ability to work under pressure.
• Innovation - transforming industry trends into practical, cost-effective solutions.
• Fluent written and spoken English

Experience

• Proven track record of driving complex enterprise architecture working across the architecture domains (business, data, applications and technology) with experience of several business domains and/or technology areas.
• Experience working within defined architectural frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman) and good understanding of modern architectural and agile delivery approaches, vendors and technology selection & procurement approaches.
• Experience of resolving complex enterprise architecture challenges and managing both business and IT change to help shape future directions.
• Proven track record of successful stakeholder management at a senior level, with a proven ability of influencing and persuading across the organisation.
• Experience of and contribution to applicable best practice and/or methodologies and their effective application.
• Demonstrable awareness of worldwide architecture and technology trends and practice, championing their use to deliver business benefit.
• Experience of operating across multiple countries and cultures is desirable, but not essential.