Solutions Architect – (Java, OpenShift, Databases, Kafka)

Solutions Architect (CREST Settlements, Java, Kafka, SOA, Micro-services) – Banking Client – London

Duration: 1 year contract – this can be extended

Hybrid working: 8 days onsite per month only

Rate: 700 – 900 per day (must use an Umbrella Company)

The role – Solution Architect – CREST New Technology
IT is at the core of the clients business, providing continuous development, assisting in delivering a cost efficient and high-quality service to its customers.

Currently the core business is run on HP NonStop Servers (Tandem).

Communications infrastructure and message routing functionality are implemented on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The banking client is starting to evaluate the migration of CREST from COBOL programs running on the HPE NonStop Guardian platform to new technology capable of running on a commoditised platform such as Linux.

Key technologies: Java, OpenShift, Databases (Oracle, SQL Server), Kafka.

Responsibilities:

It is expected that this migration will be an incremental process over a period of years.

Our new technology will be Java based and use Event Hub technology (such as Kafka) for integration between the new migrated services and non-migrated legacy CREST system.

Platform independence of migrated services is required to allow running on OpenShift Linux environments.

Further responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Defining options and providing recommendations for migration from legacy to new event driven and service focused architecture working in collaboration with the clients Enterprise Architecture team, CREST application architects and other parties
• Delivering a coherent end-to-end IT solution that meets both functional and non-functional requirements
• Ensuring:
• that the IT solution fully aligns with the Enterprise engineering and architecture standards
• end-to-end consistency of solution delivery across platforms and teams by, for instance, organising walkthroughs of the solution with delivery teams
• Collaborating with security to ensure that our new solution meets security standards
• Establishing:
• infrastructure requirements and collaborating with the infrastructure teams to deliver the Technical and Infrastructure design
• guidelines, patterns and standards for solutions architecture and design in new technology stack
• prototypes / proof of concepts to prove the key components of proposed new architecture
• estimation principles for phases of the migration program and for the proof-of-concept exercises
• Leading the implementation of the prototypes and follow-on work
• Presenting proposed solution architecture and plans to clients management, customers & team-members
• Acting as technical authority for the new solution under the new technical stack

Requirements:

Our next Solution Architect – CREST New Technology will have demonstrable solutions architecture skills and experience alongside validated strong systems development experience at all stages of systems development covering inception, budgeting, architecture, design, development, testing, live implementation and post implementation support.

Technical skills:

• Strong experience in implementing Event Hub technology (such as Kafka) and modern architecture (for example, service oriented architecture, microservices architecture)
• Experience in:
• leading the implementation of platform-independent and database independent applications
• working with Financial Market Infrastructure and/or Regulated environments
• We require our next Solution Architect – CREST New Technology to possess strong:
• analytical and systems architecture/design skills
• database design skills in database technologies such as Oracle, SQL Server etc.
• EDA technology – Kafka
• commodity platform – OpenShift, containerisation skills
• hands-on Object Oriented Design and Java programming skills

Soft skills:

• Have ability to motivate and enthuse colleagues and those you mentor, coach & lead
• Be;
• a stand out colleague and role model, willing to participate in peer reviews and to be reviewed by peers
• reliable, self-motivated and able to work without close management and supervision
• Possess inspiring communication and presentation skills to present proposals both orally and in writing
• The validated ability:
• to complete work within agreed timescales
• to identify problems and provide the most suitable solution(s)
• to be flexible and demonstrate the ability to be able to deal with a dynamic environment
• to supervise, lead, inspire and coach technical staff
• take ownership and accountability of project work under their control

Nice to have:

• Messaging Standards
• ISO 15022, ISO 20022 and JSON
• Experience in Agile development.
• IBM MQ
• Angular framework
• HPE NonStop
• Knowledge of the Settlement systems (CREST)

*Rates depend on experience and client requirements