Principal Enterprise Integration Architect (ESB/API/Event-Driven) - Full Remote

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY

A rare and genuinely senior architecture role, positioned within a centralised IT Operational Excellence function with enterprise-wide authority. This is not a project-level architect role — it's a governance and standards leadership position for someone who has operated at the intersection of complex system ecosystems, cross-team integration, and enterprise architecture strategy. If you've spent years defining how large organisations integrate at scale and have the technical depth to back it up, this is a high-impact opportunity.

Language: English B2 minimum | Level: Principal / Distinguished | Location: Fully remote

PROJECT & CONTEXT

You'll be embedded in the IT Operational Excellence Department (IT OPEX) — the centralised control point for IT strategy, governance, and standards across a scaling product landscape. Your mandate is to fill a critical architectural gap: while ESB/middleware teams handle inter-domain routing, you take definitive ownership of intra-domain architecture and local system communications, ensuring decentralised product teams build integrations that are scalable, secure, and consistent — eliminating brittle point-to-point connections and preventing technical debt before it accumulates.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 7+ years of deep technical experience in enterprise application integration, API management, and event-driven architectures within complex, multi-system corporate environments
• Advanced mastery of modern integration paradigms: REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and Event Brokers (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ) in production enterprise contexts
• Strong working knowledge of ESB/middleware platforms — specifically webMethods or equivalent (IBM Integration Bus, MuleSoft, etc.)
• Familiarity with cloud-native ETL and data integration tooling such as Azure Data Factory, Azure Integration Services, or equivalent
• Proven ability to design, publish, and govern enterprise integration patterns — API-first, event-driven, microservices — and enforce adoption across decentralised engineering teams
• Hands-on experience enforcing architectural guardrails such as the Signal vs. Payload pattern, ensuring large file transfers are decoupled from real-time ESB operations
• Demonstrated experience defining operating models and rules of engagement across separate architectural and infrastructure delivery teams
• Track record of technical debt mitigation — reviewing product team designs proactively and providing actionable guidance before problems reach production
• Ability to operate as a community leader — driving standards adoption across engineering squads without direct hierarchical authority
• Strong capacity to navigate both high-level business strategy and deep technical system-to-system data flows simultaneously
• Clear, confident communication in English (B2 or above) — essential for cross-functional stakeholder engagement at all levels

NICE TO HAVE

• Formal enterprise architecture frameworks experience (e.g., TOGAF, Archimate)
• Exposure to TM Forum standards or similar industry frameworks in Telco or utilities
• Experience with API Gateway platforms (Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong)
• Background in regulated industries — financial services, Telco, utilities, healthcare — where integration governance is business-critical
• Experience building and running Architecture Review Boards or equivalent governance structures
• Familiarity with contract testing (e.g., Pact) and integration testing strategies at enterprise scale