Job description

Job Purpose

At Emirates, we believe in connecting the world, to and through, our global hub in Dubai and in constantly innovating to ensure our customers ‘Fly Better’. Emirates Group IT thrives on the dynamic nature of technology. Being pioneers in aviation innovation, we're always at the forefront, pushing boundaries. We're on the lookout for exceptional IT professionals to fortify our position as leaders in the industry. Embark on a journey with the world’s largest international airline and become a vital part of our cutting-edge information and technology team as Principal Solutions Architect – Customer Applications.

Shape the future of customer engagement at Emirates. Lead the architecture of cutting-edge CRM, loyalty, marketing, and AI-powered customer solutions, driving digital innovation at scale while influencing strategic technology decisions across the customer journey.

As a Principal Solutions Architect, you will design, develop and govern the solution architecture of the Group in alignment with corporate business and IT strategies, ensuring appropriate balance between functional, service quality, systems management requirements and business objectives. This necessitates engagement at the strategic enterprise level while also taking full responsibility for the solution architectures implemented by individual projects and programmes. It will be advantageous if you have experience or knowledge of common Airline systems preferably within a large international airline or a service provider to airlines and/or aviation companies.

In this role, you will:

• Lead the definition and governance of new corporate and portfolio IT standards, guidelines and practices by analysing and understanding potential impact of competing technologies, assessing their strategic significance, defining their strategic role and scope, roadmap, relationship to existing standards, and periodically reviewing our entire IT estate in the context of those standards.
• Scout market and track technology advancements and new business innovations, determine how they relate to our IT strategy, existing standards, platforms and patterns, and lead the work to amend existing assets or create new assets to reflect changes in the technology landscape. Showcase business value by executing Proof of Concepts by engaging relevant IT teams.
• Lead the solution architecture development for new initiatives, vendor solution acquisitions, and enhancement of existing systems, taking full responsibility for the quality of the architecture, including integration architecture by aligning to agile architecture development practices. Drive architecture decisions and be accountable for their implications in regard to solution costs, delivery schedules, application complexity, technical debt and overall solution performance.
• Provide expert advice and lead solution design reviews to projects on technical and architectural standards, guiding them on the need to raise exception requests, develop new or amended standards, and on the appropriate use of architectural standards and patterns.
• Provide architecture and technology leadership to development teams by playing the lead architect/driver role in Teams of Teams or Agile/ Release Trains. In addition, be accountable for the overall architecture, solution discoveries, and strategic incubations by coordinating with peer architects and engineering teams
• Manage, direct, inspire and coach the work and capability of Solutions Architect and Senior Engineering resources as required, and engage in, and lead, a much wider virtual team of senior managers, technical and subject matter experts and business managers.
• Own, manage and maintain the architecture roadmap and runways of complex/large projects, technical products, environments and/or platforms. Act as a product owner and be accountable for proactively identifying, prioritizing, and overseeing the development of technical enablers, technical debts, quality improvements, and application modernization activities.

To be considered for this role, you must meet the below requirements:

• Degree (12+3 or equivalent) in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent IT related discipline and 8+ years of relevant experience in leading the architecture of cutting-edge CRM, loyalty, marketing, and AI-powered customer solutions,
• Technical leadership in leading a group of technical architects and senior developers. Ability to influence delivery plans based on architecture and skills constraints.
• Comprehensive understanding of one or more technologies such as Java, Cloud, React, open-source frameworks, low code platforms, observability, automation, ,mobile & frontend technologies, AI/ML, container management platforms, database, integration.
• Understanding of agile software development methodologies such as SCRUM and Scaled Agile and industry standard software modelling techniques such as ArchiMate, C4 and UML
• Knowledge in architecture styles such as microservices, event driven architecture, cloud native applications and well architected framework for cloud and on-premises deployments. Knowledge in major systems architecture is needed to ensure that a robust and scalable solution is developed
• Significant experience of major systems architecture is needed to ensure that a robust and scalable solution is developed
• Hands-on experience in AWS and MS Azure architecture and engineering.
• Excellent knowledge and experience in CI/CD
• Certifications: AWS/Azure Certified Solutions Architect preferred.

Leadership Role: Yes

Join us in a management role and enjoy an attractive tax-free salary. On top of our generous travel benefits, including discounted flights and hotel stays around the world, this managerial role also has an excellent leave and healthcare package. That’s on top of transport benefits, life insurance and more. Find out what it’s like to live and work in our fast-paced, cosmopolitan home city in the Dubai Lifestyle section of our website www.emirates.com/careers