Solutions Architect (Web & Mobile)

• Team Context

  One of the next high-performing teams we are establishing will be responsible for building solutions that re-imagine the customer experience at Aflac.  We are using web & mobile technologies such as Angular, Ionic and Node to deliver core capabilities to our policyholders, and are focused on a mobile-first strategy making it easy for our customers to interact with us, changes their policy information, submit claims – all from the smartphone in their pocket.  At the same time, we will be building desktop website technology that will help deliver an omni-channel experience to our policyholders, ensuring that their interactions with Aflac are as frictionless as possible.  At Aflac Northern Ireland we are all about the customer experience. 

  The intention is for our teams to continually adapt and reinvent their skills and capabilities over time as technologies change and evolve. We will provide the right challenges and opportunities to enable your success, however we need you to bring your enthusiasm, the ability to learn quickly, and to take minimum-viable-product technology to produce industrialised solutions for the enterprise.  Once you have successfully delivered robust and scalable solutions for Aflac, there will be a new technology waiting to be explored and built to scale within our organisation.  We’ll be keeping things pretty fresh.

  Role Context

  We are looking for a Solutions Architect who will understand the vision and roadmap for the product and ensure that the technologies employed are fit for purpose, robust, scalable and enterprise ready.  We want someone who is self-motivated, comfortable with a range of technologies, and passionate about developing the skills and knowledge of others.  You will lead the design and architecture of the solution, and as a technical leader in the team you will be responsible for leading architecture and design discussions in collaboration with the development team and product owner.  You will play a key leadership role for our Agile teams, helping to translate the needs of the business into technical deliverables, and you won’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and sit alongside our engineers to collaborate on solving challenging problems.  We will provide you with extensive opportunities to learn and grow, and want you to bring creativity, ingenuity, experience, and insight into software product development, data analytics, and innovation strategies. 

  What you’ll be doing

  • Collaborating with product leadership to develop and communicate long term vision and comprehensive strategic plans for solution architecture and supporting infrastructure
  • Acting as the leading voice for technical architecture in the product team, ensuring alignment of the technical delivery of Agile teams to the overall business and technology strategies
  • Participating in architecture review boards and overseeing systems design 
  • Creating and maintaining high quality standards for development and design methodologies and techniques
  • Designing technical roadmaps that demonstrate how platforms and solutions will evolve to meet the changing demands of the business
  • Implementing automation through a robust CI/CD model

   

  • Ensuring testing is deeply embedded in the design and development process, and that rigorous QA is completed for the work undertaken by Agile teams
  • Being a servant-leader, without ego or prejudice, who encourages ideas, feedback, and challenge from everyone regardless of level or experience

  What you should have

  Below is an overview of the skills and experience we are looking for, but remember, don’t rule yourself out if you don’t have everything on the list – it’s your intellect and your attitude we are really after.

  Essential

  • 10+ years of IT experience with n-tier, database and client server design/development
  • 8+ years as a lead engineer/architect using a range of technologies and tools, especially developing web & mobile applications
  • Experience with Cloud architecture and exposure to Cloud technologies such as AWS and Azure
  • Proven track record of delivery using Object Oriented concepts, and delivering architectural strategies for web/mobile applications
  • Experience of delivering customer-facing solutions that deliver on business goals
  • Demonstrated ability to work independently focusing on priorities, and managing a high volume of tasks, deadlines, requirements, and decisions
  • Evidence of collaborative working to freely share knowledge and experience
  • Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to successfully engage, influence and develop a broad range of individuals across various internal and external businesses and support functions
  • Strong organisational skills and attention to detail
  • Bachelor’s degree, preferably in a Computer Science, Engineering, or STEM subject. Comparable commercial experience may also be considered

  Desirable

  • Experience with designing and implementing Web & Mobile solutions with a strong customer purpose
  • Proven commercial experience in a full-stack development environment
  • Familiarity with some of the following technologies and frameworks:
  • Angular JS, Node JS, other JavaScript frameworks
  • Ionic framework for cross-platform mobile applications
  • Progressive Web App design and implementation
  • Microservice architectures
  • Integration services architectures, multi-layer APIs
  • Java, .NET, other OO languages
  • RDBMS and NOSQL Data technologies
  • Knowledge and experience of DevOps as part of Agile software development
  • Experience of delivering solutions for the insurance industry
  • Delivery of Agile solutions for customers/clients located in different time zones

   

  So that’s us. Thanks for taking the time to read this far (pretty impressive in the era of the 280-character tweet). We look forward to hearing from you if you fancy joining a new tech innovation company with the agility of a start-up and the stability of a Fortune 500 U.S. company.