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Who are we?
Howden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries. People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.
What is the role?
As Enterprise Architect for the Digital Backbone, you will provide architectural leadership and strategic direction for Howden Group's core integration and technology platform. You will shape and govern the architecture of the Digital Backbone – the foundational layer that connects systems, data, and services across the enterprise – while driving adoption of API-first principles, integration best practices, and enterprise-wide governance.
The Digital Backbone is Howden Group's foundational technology and integration layer, designed to eliminate fragmented systems and manual processes, and to enable digital product delivery and innovation at scale.
WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING?
Architecture Leadership & Design
- Define, own, and communicate the enterprise architecture of the Digital Backbone, establishing it as the strategic integration platform across Howden Group.
- Architect and lead the design, development, and deployment of APIs and integrations, ensuring alignment with enterprise-wide standards and the Digital Backbone's strategic goals.
- Drive adoption of API-first design principles and the APIOps methodology across the integration lifecycle, including automation of API deployment and governance.
- Develop, maintain, and communicate key architecture artefacts including policies, standards, principles, patterns, templates, and capability models.
- Manage Group Enterprise Architecture assets – including application and technology catalogues, roadmaps, and capability models – within the EA management repository.
Governance & Standards
- Define and enforce architectural standards and best practices for integration and API design, development, and management, working within the Digital Backbone Technical Design Authority.
- Chair and run architecture governance forums on behalf of Group IT leadership, including developing decision-making frameworks, running regular meetings, and reporting on governance metrics and outcomes.
- Conduct architectural reviews and provide guidance to development teams on integration patterns, best practices, and compliance requirements.
- Identify and mitigate technical risks, ensuring alignment with security, compliance, and regulatory requirements.
- Undertake due diligence of vendor systems and solutions to ensure alignment with Group IT policies and standards.
Stakeholder Engagement & Evangelism
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- Evangelise the Digital Backbone architecture and technology stack through documentation, internal communications, and stakeholder engagement at all levels.
- Attend key change programme, project, and business stakeholder meetings to provide Group IT Enterprise Architecture guidance and direction.
- Undertake consultative engagements with teams across the wider business as a subject matter expert in integration architecture and Digital Backbone capabilities.
- Collaborate with enterprise architects, platform leads, and business stakeholders to align integration solutions with strategic goals.
Continuous Improvement
- Continuously assess and optimise integration solutions and tooling for performance, scalability, maintainability, observability, and self-service capability.
- Lead technical discussions, mentor team members, and foster a culture of innovation, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement.
- Work in an agile, collaborative manner and adapt to evolving business needs and technology trends, constructively challenging ideas and remaining open to feedback.
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
The successful candidate will be a self-motivated, pragmatic, and outcomes-focused architect who is comfortable taking ownership, collaborating across teams, and communicating complex technical concepts to senior stakeholders. Strong communication skills and genuine enthusiasm for technology are essential.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Strong enterprise architecture skills and experience, specifically running pragmatic, guidance-oriented, and outcomes-focused architecture governance at group or global scale.
- Excellent knowledge of enterprise integration patterns and their application, with demonstrated expertise in API lifecycle management and governance.
- Experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale API platforms using Azure technologies, including Azure API Management, Logic Apps, and Service Bus.
- Strong experience enabling monitoring, alerting, telemetry, auditing, and business/technical metrics across integration platforms.
- Expertise in designing API contracts and applying an API-first approach, including strong understanding of the APIOps methodology.
- Proficiency with the Postman Enterprise platform, developer portals, API catalogues, and API lifecycle and testing tools.
- Experience with scripting and automation tooling, such as PowerShell, Pester, YAML, Spectral, and Terraform.
- Skills and experience developing capability models, application and technology catalogues, and roadmaps (preferably within the insurance domain).
- Strong Architecture and IT governance experience, including establishing and running Architecture Review Boards and Design Authorities for major change programmes.
- Strong understanding of secure design and secure development practices and frameworks.
- Experience in enterprise environments with change management and governance processes.
- Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to tailor messages to senior stakeholders and technical delivery teams.
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Desirable Qualifications & Experience
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert or equivalent.
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate or equivalent Associate-level Azure certification (e.g. DevOps Engineer Expert, Azure Administrator Associate).
- BCS certification in Enterprise & Solution Architecture, TOGAF, or Archimate certification.
- Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
- Experience with other integration platforms such as BizTalk, MuleSoft, Informatica, or Boomi.
- Experience integrating with platforms such as Salesforce, Reltio, legacy insurance systems, and data platforms.
- Experience with pro developer languages and enterprise low-code platforms (e.g. C#, YAML, XSLT, Liquid Templates, Logic Apps, RPA).
- Experience of AI Coding Tools such as Claude Code, Github Copilot.
- Knowledge of working in a regulated environment (e.g. FCA, PRA, GDPR) and awareness of global insurance regulatory requirements.
- Good knowledge of enterprise-grade CRM, HR, and Finance systems; Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing technologies.
- Insurance domain experience, preferably within broking and/or the London Market.
What do we offer in return?
A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity – there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:
- Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new.
- We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges.
- We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond.
Reasonable adjustments
We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*. If you're excited by this role but have some doubts about whether it’s the right fit for you, send us your application – if your profile fits the role’s criteria, we will be in touch to assist in helping to get you set up with any reasonable adjustments you may require.
*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.
Permanent
Howden began in 1994, as just three people and a dog. Now there are 23,000 of us, and we're a leading global insurance group, managing $37bn of premiums for our clients. Our largest shareholder group is us – the people who work in the business – supported by three long-term, minority growth-equity partners who share our vision to build a business to last, one that will never be sold. The owner's mindset is something that's embedded in our culture; our people readily take ownership of their decisions, their actions, and their outputs. They’re invested in every sense. And we all know that by working together to drive the business forward, everyone will benefit from the extraordinary results we can achieve.
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