Senior Solutions Architect - Cards & Payments Platform

Overview

Required Experience

• 10+ years of overall technology experience.
• Minimum 2–3 years as a Solution Architect or Technical Architect within Cards/Payments domain.
• Strong experience in banking and financial services environments.
• Proven experience delivering enterprise-scale cards and payments solutions.
• 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.

Mandatory Domain Expertisecard 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

Technical SkillsArchitecture & 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