Head of Architecture, Engineering and Platforms

Head of Architecture, Engineering & Platforms, Group Functions Technology Description We are currently seeking a high caliber professional to join our team as Head of Architecture, Engineering & Platforms, Group Functions Technology (GFT) Role purpose: Reporting into the Head of Architecture and Engineering Practices, the Head of Architecture, Engineering & Platform for Group Functions Technology (GFT) will be responsible for establishing and executing the architecture and engineering strategy for GFT. The role will lead and grow a team of architects and engineers, working on both GFT and group wide outcomes, fostering a technical culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence. The role forms part of the wider CTO Platform Engineering and Architecture (CTOp) organisation and will be the key link between the GFT and CTOp groups, providing an engaged point of contact for the deployment of the AI, Application, Data and Developer Platforms alongside Architecture and Engineering Practices. The role will enable the GFT architecture and engineering organisation, act as a champion for engineering excellence and drive the building & engineering of products that are reusable for Group Functions Technology. The role will champion engineering excellence whilst empowering developers with world-class technology, practice, and organisational enablement, strengthening partnerships, ensuring standardisation and alignment, and enabling Group Functions business success. The role will focus on defining and delivering on the vision for Group Functions Technology strategy on scalable systems development and technology architecture. In addition, the role will focus on platform adoption, modernisation and standardisation, developer productivity and drive DevSecOps across all Group Functions Technology platforms. The person in this role will be commercially astute, an excellent communicator and able to partner strongly with executive level business stakeholders and their teams. They will partner with GFT CIOs, as well key CTO partners, to deliver technology strategies, create new solutions and drive a culture of continuous improvement. The role will support the GFT strategy whilst accelerating the build out and development of a world-class CTO capability that attracts, nurtures and retains talent. Principal Accountabilities: Act as the key trusted technical adviser to GFT leadership team and business stakeholders providing strategic direction, enterprise breadth and clear, risk-based technology advice. Act as the Champion for engineering excellence & create an engineering culture that fosters experimentation and learning. Serve as the “on-the-ground” CTO Platform & Architecture representative for GFT covering Architecture plus CTO Platforms (Application, Developer, AI and Data) and Engineering Practices—ensuring two-way alignment between platform strategy/backlogs and local needs. Lead engineering practices and adoption, e.g., technology uplift, coding guidelines, code reviews and reuse and CI/CD practices, open source and inner source, compliance, and security practices. Own and drive Future State Architecture (FSA) governance and refresh across GFT, using co-design with Business and Technology to agree plans, priorities and actions, and to drive application simplification. Develop corresponding engineering patterns and ensure adoption, focused on creational, structural, behavioural and domain specific patterns e.g., UI frameworks, digital distribution platforms (e.g., web, API, mobile), and messaging i.e., Kafka. Implement software delivery frameworks and tooling to improve service resiliency and business outcomes / performance. Ensure our engineers can access tools for each stage of the software development lifecycle, with a degree of choice, across planning, collaboration, and development tools, DevSecOps, Low- or no-code tools and AI. Implement developer productivity metrics and visualisation that will provide real-time transparency of software development e.g., DORA/SPACE metrics, including AI led code generation, engineering code committers, code quality (e.g., increased release frequency, decreased lead time to deploy, increased percentage of automated changes. Define, develop and practically implement state-of-the-art strategies to solving complex and ambiguous problems using modern set of technology platforms across multiple markets. Build a great architecture and engineering team that delivers excellent results to difficult problems across multiple functions and geographies. Adoption of Value Streams and Agile methodologies that will increase the speed in which we can deliver value to our customers. Drive standardisation across Value Streams and define foundational tooling, frameworks and common services that will provide patterns, training, governance, and design principles. This should enable more reuse, reduce duplication / throw-away work, and accelerate the demise of technical debt and toil. Accountable for global implementation of initiatives, working with global and regional and business / service lines leads / Technology functions leads to provide optimised global services adjusted to address regional needs. Enable reduced operational cost, ensuring headcount distribution is optimal to deliver business value at optimal cost, and reduced RTB cost to optimise CTB, without impact to resilience and controls. Essential Experience: Outstanding Technology leader who is passionate about driving the business agenda Hands-on experience in leading and influencing global technology teams in HSBC or in a financial organisation with a similar scale Deep subject matter expertise to lead diverse teams across global functions, with strong people leadership, teamwork, gathering information and analyzing, judgment and decision making, communication competencies Understanding of and experience with emerging data technologies Extensive experience in senior leadership roles across multiple businesses and functions for large scale financial institutions. Excellent people and leadership skills at all levels of the organisation, with exceptional communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to collaborate and build relationships with key partners. Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities with a track record of driving innovative technical solutions and continuous improvement. Extensive experience in building and growing a high performing diverse team of engineers and architects globally. Deep technical and hands-on expertise across software development frameworks and multiple coding languages e.g., Python, Java. Deep technical and hands-on expertise with platform technologies e.g., GCP, AWS – compute, storage, network, and data. Hands-on experience across multiple complex domains and technology stacks e.g., Kafka. Extensive experience and understanding of API technologies. Experience with IT automation tools and DevSecOps practices and technologies Essential Capabilities Cultivates Innovation: Creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful Strategic Mindset: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies Action Oriented: Taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy, and enthusiasm Builds Effective Teams: Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals Drives Vision & Purpose: Painting a compelling picture of the vision and strategy that motivates others to action Being Resilient: Rebounding from setbacks and adversity when facing difficult situations Manages ambiguity and ensures accountability: Operating effectively, even when things are not certain, or the way forward is not clear; holds self and others accountable to meet commitments. Persuasion & Conviction: Using compelling arguments to gain the support and commitment of others; stepping up to address difficult issues and saying what needs to be said