LGIMA - Solutions Architect

Chicago, IL

Solutions Architect

Job Description:

This is an exciting opportunity to join one of the largest global investment management firms. LGIMA and affiliate are currently on a digital transformation journey and require a talented individual to take responsibility for a number of end-to-end technology solutions to deliver strategic business outcomes.
As a Solution Architect you will be joining a motivated team of professionals working to architect solutions for entire breath of the firm, including Portfolio Managers, Analysts, Quants, Marketing, Compliance and Operations. You will gain exposure to a variety of partners at all levels, from Senior Technology leaders to Senior Business partners.
The candidate will be required to put forward roadmaps and designs for an all-encompassing vision for target state technology solutions for the initiatives, and work with several engineering teams spanning multiple technologies to ensure its implementation.
The candidate must be able to identify and resolve issues that are creating inefficiencies or hindering progress proactively.

Responsibilities:

Design Ownership

Producing and owning the end-to-end design of the solution spanning multiple software components (evidencing at all points how the design answers the requirements – clear traceability)
Working with engineering teams to ensure detailed component-level design responds to the end-to-end design
Working with the Senior Architects to ensure that data and functional architectures adhere to the high-level architecture principles and support target state vision for the enterprise
Working with the IT Infrastructure implementation team to make sure that planned infrastructure adequately supports the software components of the solution

Requirements

Working closely with Business stakeholders, Product Managers/Owners and Business Analysts to help translate desired business outcomes into robust system requirements, both functional and non-functional

Development & Testing:

Facilitate and participate in detailed design reviews and ensure that all components of the solution are aligned to the target state vision
Working with the testing team to support the definition and implementation of the testing strategy for the initiative

Software Delivery

Working with component developers to elicit, validate and refine estimates for developing the software components
Planning and coordination of deployment activities across multiple technology platforms
Overall accountability for delivering technology change is shared with IT project managers

Qualifications:

7-10 years’ experience in Finance - Investment Management sector.
Substantial experience in software/application development with progressively increasing responsibilities and long-term engagements with employers
Experience working on investment management front office systems including portfolio management systems, OMS & trading platforms
Understanding of IBOR & ABOR fundamentals
Experience of the Charles River (CRIMS) product and interfaces
Track record of designing and delivering solution architecture for data-intensive initiatives spanning multiple technologies, delivered over the course of 2-3 years, and budgeted above $5m
Experience of large transformational projects with multi-year system migration planning
Experience implementing and integrating 3rd party packages as part of technology solutions
Experience with Agile delivery methodologies; working knowledge of the SAFe framework would be a plus
Practical understanding and experience of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD)

Specialist knowledge/skills:

Excellent understanding and practical experience of defining, designing and implementing Microservices in an enterprise environment
Excellent understanding and practical experience of cloud technologies, including PaaS, container platforms (Docker and Kubernetes), Serverless, etc. Experience with Red Hat Openshift and AWS of significant benefit
Knowledge of enterprise messaging technologies with experience of Kafka
Knowledge of UX/UI design and technologies
In addition, it would be a plus to have exposure to:
- Big Data technology stacks, such as native AWS and/or Cloudera CDH/CDP
- Data management and data quality tools

Competence/Characteristics: