Senior API Architect

About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Application Architect to steer application architecture strategy, solution design, modernization initiatives, and governance. The role entails designing secure, scalable, resilient, and high-performing digital applications in alignment with business goals and evolving customer needs within a fully remote setup based in the United Arab Emirates.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and update strategies for application architecture that align with business and technological objectives.
• Define both current and target application architectures across enterprise and digital platforms.
• Establish principles, standards, patterns, reference architectures, and governance frameworks for applications.
• Design secure, scalable, resilient, maintainable, and high-performing application solutions covering enterprise systems, digital platforms, and critical business services.
• Translate business, functional, and non-functional requirements into robust application architecture designs.
• Evaluate and choose architecture patterns such as monolithic, modular, service-oriented, microservices, event-driven, and cloud-native based on complexity, criticality, and operational needs.
• Lead the creation of application modernization roadmaps including refactoring, replatforming, and retirement of legacy systems.
• Collaborate with Integration and Data Architects to define API standards, data models, integration approaches, and security architectures.
• Implement application security measures including authentication, authorization, encryption, and compliance with privacy and regulatory requirements.
• Design for high availability, application resilience patterns, observability, and effective disaster recovery strategies.
• Partner with Infrastructure and Cloud Architects for hosting, cloud services, and application deployment architectures supporting DevOps practices.
• Govern application architecture compliance via review boards, design workshops, and technical assessments.
• Assess emerging technologies including AI-enabled apps, cloud-native platforms, and automation tools for business value.
• Oversee vendor solution evaluation, RFP participation, and manage technology cost optimization and lifecycle compliance.

Performance Indicators

• Compliance with architecture standards and governance.
• Application availability, uptime, performance, scalability, and reliability metrics.
• Incident management effectiveness, including mean time to recover and resolve issues.
• Security compliance including vulnerability remediation and secure design adherence.
• Progress in application modernization, legacy retirement, and technical debt reduction.
• Deployment success rates, release stability, and automated testing coverage.
• Cloud migration success and adoption of CI/CD, monitoring, and disaster recovery readiness.
• Stakeholder satisfaction and completeness of architecture documentation.

Candidate Profile

• Extensive experience in application, software, solution, or enterprise architecture in complex, technology-driven, or regulated settings.
• Proficient understanding of enterprise application design principles and modern software architecture patterns.
• Demonstrated skill in architecting scalable, secure, and highly available enterprise applications across multiple domains.
• Experience with application lifecycle management and agile development methodologies.
• Knowledgeable in modern programming languages, frameworks, and API design, especially RESTful APIs with lifecycle governance.
• Strong expertise in application security, including authentication, authorization, encryption, and secure coding practices.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.