Senior Solutions Architect - Cards & Payments Platform

Overview

Required Experience

Solution Architecture & Delivery

• Design end-to-end architecture solutions for Cards and Payments platforms
• Produce architecture artifacts, solution designs, and technical specifications
• Define scalable, resilient, secure, and reusable architecture patterns
• Ensure alignment with enterprise architecture standards and business objectives
• Evaluate and integrate third-party card management and payment solutions
• Support solution estimation, feasibility studies, vendor assessments, and technology selection
• Collaborate with product, business, engineering, infrastructure, security, and operations teams
• Drive architecture governance, reviews, and compliance processes

Cards & Payments Domain Leadership

• Architect solutions across the complete card lifecycle:
• + Card Issuance
• + Card Activation
• + Card Management
• + Transaction Processing
• + Acquiring
• + Authorization
• + Clearing
• + Settlement
• + Chargebacks
• + Dispute Management
• Design solutions for:
• + Credit Cards
• + Debit Cards
• + Prepaid Cards
• + Corporate Cards
• + Co-Branded Cards

+ Loyalty & Rewards Programs

+ Installment Payment Programs

• Work with payment gateways, processors, switches, clearing systems, and banking ecosystems

Architecture Governance

• Develop reusable reference architectures and architecture blueprints
• Conduct peer reviews and architecture assessments
• Mentor junior architects and engineering teams
• Deliver architecture workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions
• Contribute to architecture standards, patterns, and best practices

Card Management Platforms

• Hands-on architecture experience with one or more of:
• VisionPLUS
• Way4
• First Data
• CardPac

Cards Processing

• Strong understanding of:
• Authorization Processing

• Clearing & Settlement

• Card Switching
• Acquiring
• Issuing
• Merchant Payments
• Chargebacks
• Dispute Management
• Reconciliation Processes

Experience With

• Payment Gateways
• Payment Processors
• Card Networks
• Clearing Systems

Industry Standards & Compliance

• Strong knowledge of:
• PCI-DSS
• EMV
• PSD2

• UAE Central Bank Regulations

• GDPR

Experience Implementing

• Tokenization

• 3D Secure (3DS)

• Encryption Technologies

Architecture & Integration

• Enterprise Architecture
• Solution Architecture
• Technical Architecture
• API Architecture
• Microservices Architecture
• Event-Driven Architecture

• Distributed Systems Design

• Integration Architecture

Banking & Payments Technologies

• REST APIs
• SOAP Services
• ISO 8583

• Core Banking Integrations

• Middleware Platforms

Security Architecture

• Threat Modeling
• Data Classification
• Asset Valuation
• Security by Design

• Authentication & Authorization

• Cybersecurity Controls

Cloud & Modern Engineering (Preferred)

• Exposure to:
• Cloud Architecture
• DevOps Practices
• Container Platforms
• CI/CD Pipelines

Ai Knowledge (Preferred)

• Awareness or experience with:
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• Generative AI

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

• Embedding Models
• Vector Databases

• Model Context Protocol (MCP)

• GitHub Copilot
• Claude Code

Key Competencies

• Strong stakeholder management skills
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Strategic and analytical thinking
• Strong problem-solving capabilities
• Delivery-focused mindset
• Ability to balance customer experience, functionality, security, performance, and resiliency
• Self-driven and capable of working with minimal supervision
• Strong mentoring and coaching abilities
• High learning agility and adaptability