EMEA Architect – Payments Technology

Title: EMEA Architect – Payments Technology

Address: Bromley

Days Onsite: 3 days hybrid - no flex

Hours per week: 40

Duration: 12‑Month Rolling Contract (multi‑year potential)

Interview Process:

• 1–2 rounds (technical + stakeholder)

Insight Global are seeking a highly experienced EMEA Architect to lead the architectural vision and design for a suite of global payments technology initiatives. This role will drive end‑to‑end architecture for ISO 20022 migrations (CHAPS, TARGET2, SWIFT CBPR+), real‑time payments enablement, payment engine modernisation, and regulatory/scheme delivery across multiple regions.

The ideal candidate will combine deep technical leadership with hands‑on expertise in cloud, microservices, distributed systems, and financial services payment flows.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the architectural vision, strategy, and design for complex enterprise‑scale payments platforms.

• Describe solution intent, operating environment, system impacts, primary subsystems, and integration points.

• Support end‑to‑end solution design, defining non‑functional requirements and architectural runway for new epics and features.

• Ensure architecture is fit‑for‑purpose by partnering with business stakeholders, vendors, and engineering teams.

• Create architecture roadmaps, standards, templates, and ensure their adoption across delivery teams.

• Lead and contribute to design governance, including architecture decision papers and code/design reviews.

• Act as the expert on microservices architectures and cloud migration strategies for financial services.

• Interpret complex business needs and translate them into scalable and resilient technology solutions.

• Mentor junior architects and collaborate with geographically distributed teams.

• Advise Technology Leadership and Product Owners across all aspects of application architecture and development.

• Operate effectively in both Agile and Waterfall delivery environments.

Must-haves:

• Vast experience in Information Technology and Solution Architecture.

• Minimum 2 years in a bank working within Payments domain, possessing deep knowledge of end‑to‑end payment flow, including:

○ Payment initiation

○ Data structuring & validation

○ Middleware checks (routing, location)

○ Fraud, sanctions, FCC screening

○ Balance checks

○ FX handling and payment creation

• Proven experience architecting large, complex, globally distributed systems.

• Deep understanding of application architecture, design patterns, SDLC (software dev lifecycle), implementation and maintenance.

• Hands‑on experience designing high‑throughput, low‑latency systems using:

○ Microservices

○ Containers

○ Distributed database - such as mongoDB

○ Kafka

• Ability to analyse and balance trade‑offs across scalability, resilience, availability, and security.

• Broad technical leadership across tools, platforms, and architecture models.

• Ability to manage multiple parallel design streams and meet programme timelines.

• Experience with AWS, Azure, GCP, or other cloud service providers.

• Strong adherence to architecture governance frameworks and regulatory compliance.