Senior architect/ Java lead

Key Skills:
Banking Domain | Enterprise Architecture | Cloud Architecture | Kubernetes | OpenShift | Microservices | API Architecture | DevSecOps | Security | Scalability | Resilience | Technical Leadership

Role Overview
We are looking for an experienced Senior Architect to define and drive the architecture of enterprise-scale banking applications and digital platforms. The candidate will work closely with business, product, engineering, infrastructure, security, and operations teams to design scalable, secure, resilient, and high-performing solutions for retail and corporate banking.
The role requires strong expertise in banking domain, enterprise architecture, microservices, API-first architecture, cloud platforms, Kubernetes/OpenShift, distributed systems, databases, security, and enterprise integration.

Key Responsibilities
Define and govern end-to-end solution and application architecture for banking platforms.
Translate business and functional requirements into scalable technical solutions.
Design K8S, microservices-based and API-first architectures.
Define architecture standards, design principles, technology choices, and reusable frameworks.
Drive modernization of legacy banking applications toward modern digital platforms.
Design solutions supporting high availability, scalability, resiliency, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
Design and govern deployment architectures across public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud environments.
Define and govern Kubernetes-based application architectures, including containerization, scaling, service discovery, networking, configuration, secrets, and workload management.
Provide architecture guidance for Kubernetes/OpenShift platforms and cloud-native application deployments.
Design secure integration with channels, core banking systems, payment systems, authentication platforms, third-party systems, and enterprise services.
Establish API standards including REST, security, versioning, lifecycle management, and backward compatibility.
Work with engineering teams on architecture decisions, design reviews, POCs, and technical governance.
Identify and resolve architecture-level performance, scalability, reliability, and production issues.
Define appropriate database, caching, messaging, and integration patterns.
Evaluate and recommend technologies based on business requirements, operational considerations, security, and enterprise standards.
Ensure solutions comply with banking security, regulatory, audit, data protection, and enterprise architecture standards.
Provide technical leadership across multiple development and implementation teams.
Mentor architects, technical leads, and senior developers.
Collaborate with senior stakeholders to communicate architecture decisions, risks, dependencies, and technology roadmaps.

Cloud & Kubernetes Expertise
Strong experience in designing and implementing solutions on:

Containers: Docker / OCI containers
Container Platforms: Kubernetes / OpenShift
Kubernetes workload deployment and management
Kubernetes networking and service discovery
Ingress, load balancing and API Gateway integration
Horizontal/vertical scaling and resource management
Configuration and secrets management
Health checks, readiness/liveness probes
High availability and self-healing
Kubernetes security and RBAC
Container image management and vulnerability scanning
CI/CD and automated deployment
Cloud-native observability, logging, metrics and tracing
Service mesh and microservices communication patterns
Disaster recovery and multi-cluster architecture

Technical Architecture
Architecture & Design
Enterprise Architecture
Solution Architecture
Cloud-Native Architecture
Microservices Architecture
Domain-Driven Design
Event-Driven Architecture
API-first Architecture
Distributed Systems
Design Patterns
High Availability & Resiliency

Backend & Integration
Java / Spring Boot or equivalent enterprise technologies
REST APIs
API Gateway
Kafka / messaging platforms
OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect
SSO and IAM
Service-to-service security

DevOps & Platform Engineering
CI/CD pipelines
DevSecOps
Git-based development and deployment
Infrastructure as Code
Kubernetes / OpenShift
Docker
Helm
Monitoring, logging and distributed tracing
Production deployment and rollback strategies

Database & Data
Oracle / PostgreSQL or equivalent RDBMS
SQL and database architecture
Redis / distributed caching
Replication and high-availability database architectures
Performance and capacity planning

Non-Functional Architecture
Strong experience defining and addressing:
Performance and scalability
High availability
Disaster recovery
Resilience and fault tolerance
Security
Data privacy
Capacity planning
Observability
Maintainability
Operational readiness
Production supportability

Leadership & Stakeholder Management
Work effectively with senior business and technology stakeholders.
Lead architecture discussions across development, infrastructure, security, DevOps and operations teams.
Review and approve high-level and low-level technical designs.
Establish architecture governance and engineering standards.
Mentor architects, technical leads and senior developers.
Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Drive technology roadmaps and modernization initiatives.
Balance business requirements, technical debt, delivery timelines, risk and long-term architecture.

Preferred Qualifications
Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
Architecture certifications such as TOGAF, AWS/Azure/GCP Architecture, or equivalent are desirable.
Kubernetes certifications such as CKA/CKAD are an advantage.
Experience with large-scale digital banking transformation programs.
Experience working across multiple geographies/entities is an advantage.
Experience working in regulated financial services environments is highly desirable.