For our client in Brussels we are looking for –
IT Enterprise Architect – Home office
Language level
Mandatory: Working knowledge of English: C1 or higher
NATURE OF THE TASKS
The requested profile shall provide services to Data Centre IT infrastructure, operations, and housing and hosting services, with a main focus on the Local Datacentre Consolidation (LDC) initiative and the migration of Information Systems towards managed services.
The tasks of the consultant will be focused on:
• Ensuring the good operational condition of the Data Centres by supervising the activities performed
by contractors, with a focus on IT Operations, Security, Integration, Application Lifecycle Management, DevSecOps, and Service Continuity.
• Overseeing the integration aspects of the IT infrastructure, hosting services and components, as well as the basic system layers (e.g. Infrastructure Services, Platform Services,
Application Services, System Monitoring and Management tools), liaising with contractors.
• Supervising the Local Datacentre Consolidation (LDC) initiative, aiming to ensure the smooth transition of Data Centre IT layers and, subsequently, Information Systems from the current state
• Analyzing the integration of different Information Systems and ensuring their interoperability.
• Providing advice, guidance, consultancy and assistance to the official(s) responsible, delivering
expert advice on IT technical matters, service delivery, solution architecture, organizational aspects
and ITSM processes.
• Coordinating the proper execution of activities and projects, facilitating interactions and providing
guidance to all stakeholders, including contractors, European Commission officials and external
experts.
In this context, the support of the consultant is required for the following activities:
1. Contribution to the evolution of IT infrastructure, platforms, applications,
services and solution architecture:
• Supporting projects related to LDC, system integration and application modernization, ensuring
availability, stability and service continuity as primary operational objectives.
• Promoting the LDC initiative and supporting service delivery for systems and
applications through the adoption of updated organizational models, working methods and
tooling, while facilitating collaboration between contractors, vendors, and service providers.
• Contributing to the design and provision of Datacentre housing and hosting services, as well as
infrastructure, platform and application components, encouraging re-use and ensuring that
technical solutions meet requirements related to scalability, performance, security,
confidentiality, integrity and resilience.
• Participating in the drafting, review and assessment of proposals related to IT architecture
governance and organizational evolution, aiming at improving service delivery efficiency and
streamlining technical activities.
• Reviewing, analyzing and recommending IT solutions, including cost-benefit considerations
and implementation effort assessments, and contributing to the evaluation of technical solutions
proposed by contractors.
• Ensuring that infrastructure and platform requirements expressed by development contractors
are aligned with applicable standards, policies and reference architectures.
• Contributing to the design of scalable, secure and cost-effective architectures for systems,
components and services, in alignment with corporate enterprise and solution architecture
guidelines.
• Collaborating with contractors’ teams to support the migration, integration and deployment of solutions in a controlled and coordinated manner.
2. Support to project coordination and programme continuity:
• Acting, when required, as backup support to the Program Manager, ensuring
continuity of coordination activities without replacing the formal responsibility of the appointed
official.
• Supporting the management of technical projects by monitoring progress against agreed
schedules, quality expectations and available resources.
• Contributing to the enforcement of agreed organizational corporate standards, procedures and
project office practices, and raising warnings in case of deviations.
• Supporting coordination between various contractors responsible
for implementing infrastructure, platform and application requirements in line with programme
or project planning and scope.
• Ensuring timely preparation and availability of required infrastructure, platform, application
components and supporting services.
• Structuring technical and project-related information in a manner appropriate to the target
audience, ensuring timely communication and shared understanding.
• Producing, reviewing and maintaining technical and project documentation, with attention to
consistency, versioning and alignment with schedules and milestones.
• Identifying improvement opportunities related to service delivery or working methodologies
and escalating risks or issues with potential impact on timelines, resources or service continuity
3. Support IT operations and service management
• Supporting IT operations by supervising contractor-performed activities and
overseeing the management of Information Systems across IT Service Management (ITSM) and
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) domains, including configuration, event, incident,
problem, change, knowledge and continuity management, as well as design, development, testing,
deployment and maintenance activities.
• Supervising release, delivery, change, testing and deployment activities performed by
contractors and other Commission services, ensuring alignment with agreed processes and
schedules.
• Participating, when required, in the follow-up of change implementation or incident resolution
activities, providing technical support in crisis management situations, including activities outside
normal working hours when necessary.
• Applying, promoting and suggesting improvements methodologies,
security policies, tools and best practices, and supporting the analysis of complex technical or
process issues.
• Identifying potential design, development, testing or infrastructure flaws not fully addressed by
development or operations teams, and raising these for appropriate consideration.
• Continuously monitoring infrastructure, platform and application services, and contributing to
optimization actions aimed at improving performance, reliability and operational stability.
• Ensuring that relevant technical and operational documentation is available, up to date and
accessible to all authorized stakeholders.
The following experience is required:
• Extensive experience in IT system migration, integration and modernization, supported by strong
technical expertise and a minimum of 15 years of relevant professional experience in enterprise-level Datacentre infrastructure, platforms and operations. This shall include at least 5 years of
demonstrable experience in DevSecOps practices, System integration and interoperability
technologies, IT Service Management (ITSM) processes and IT project management. Such
experience shall have been acquired within complex, structured organizations operating with
outsourced service models and demonstrated through practical, hands-on involvement.
• Proven experience in project coordination and technical governance, preferably based on recognized
methodologies (e.g. PRINCE2, PMBOK, PM2). This includes the ability to coordinate and interact
effectively with multiple stakeholders business and IT teams, external
contractors, service providers, vendors, suppliers, and where relevant Member State
representatives), to assess the quality of deliverables and services, and to contribute to the review
and validation of technical proposals and outputs provided by contractors
• Strong technical, architectural and integration competencies, demonstrated through the ability to
understand and analyze complex IT initiatives (including risks, dependencies and success factors);
to work in coordination with enterprise and solution architects on complex technical matters; to
adapt to evolving system and application architectures; and to produce, review and maintain
architectural, technical and service-related documentation. This includes solid knowledge and
practical experience across enterprise IT infrastructure and platforms (networking, storage,
compute, virtualization, operating systems, databases, middleware, containers, monitoring and
observability), cloud and cloud-native environments, DevSecOps practices and CI/CD pipelines,
infrastructure-as-code and automation tools, interoperability and integration technologies, service
implementation patterns, and European Commission IT standards and frameworks.
• Strong project coordination, organizational and communication skills, demonstrated through the
ability to support the application of organizational arrangements and project governance practices;
to contribute to IT system design and strategic planning activities; to support programme planning
and delivery in line with contractual milestones; to monitor progress, quality and risks; to identify
and escalate issues with potential impact on timelines, resources or service continuity; and to
provide structured reporting and clear communication adapted to technical and non-technical
stakeholders.
Certifications
Relevant certifications in the domains of System and Enterprise Architecture, DevSecOps and Cloud
technologies, Project and Programme management, and IT Governance and Service Management are
mandatory.
• DevSecOps and Cloud technologies: One of the following or an equivalent certification: AWS
Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect, Google Professional
Cloud Architect, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional,
Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer Expert, Google Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer,
Certified Kubernetes Administration, DevSecOps Engineering, VMware Cloud Foundation Certified Professional.
• System and Enterprise Architecture: one of the following or an equivalent certification: TOGAF,
COBIT, Zachman, Architecture Thinking, Archimate, BPMN, UML.
• IT Governance and Service Management: One of the following or an equivalent certification:
ITIL V3/V4/V5 Foundation, COBIT Foundation (more advanced certifications are an asset).
Optional:
• Project and Program management: One of the following or an equivalent certification: PM2,
Prince2, PMP, Agile, Scrum, SAFe.
• System Integration and Interoperability: A certification in one of the following domains or an
equivalent: Java EE, Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architecture, Microservice
Architectures, Domain-Driven Design, Enterprise Integration Patterns, or API design and security.
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
The envisaged consultant shall have a solid background in IT Service Management, IT Infrastructure,
DevSecOps, System Integration and Interoperability, Business Continuity and Security, with demonstrated
experience in large-scale and multi-stakeholder environments.
The consultant is expected to demonstrate:
• Technical knowledge of European Commission standard IT products and technologies.
• Strong organizational, coordination and project coordination and support skills, including
interaction with multiple international stakeholders.
• Ability to operate autonomously contributes effectively in collaborative environments, and facilitate
structured technical discussions.
• Experience in key performance indicators and critical success factors monitoring and structured
reporting to different organizational levels.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to adapt technical information to
the target audience.
• Ability to produce and maintain technical, architectural and service-related documentation.
• Understanding of technological risks, dependencies and success factors associated with large IT transformation initiatives.
• Knowledge of ITIL IT Service Management framework.
• Excellent English speaking and writing skills.
• Good French speaking and writing skills.
• Experience in delivering presentations and technical briefings to diverse audiences.
• A service-oriented and customer-focused approach.
• Previous experience in similar roles within European institutions is considered a strong asset.
Due to the particular nature of a large international organization such as the European Commission,
candidates should also have the following non-technical skills:
• Capability of integration in an international/multicultural environment, rapid self-starting
capability and experience in working in team.
• Ability to participate in multilingual meetings.
• Ability to work in multi-cultural environments, on multiple large projects.
• Excellent Team Player
• Ability to understand, speak and write in English (C1/C1); having good working knowledge or other
European languages (French, German in first place, C1/C1) will be an asset.
• High degree of discretion and integrity is required as the applications managed and maintained in
contain personal and confidential data.
SPECIFIC EXPERTISE
Following specific expertise is mandatory for the performance of tasks:
1. System Architecture and Integration Design
• Experience in supporting and maintaining complex system architectures across on-premises,
hybrid and cloud environments.
• Practical experience with high availability, disaster recovery and system integration principles.
• Good knowledge of interoperability technologies, including web services, message-oriented
middleware, service-oriented and event-driven architectures.
• Experience in the specification of system components, data structures and services.
• Experience in defining service interfaces, service data models and reference models.
• Good knowledge of service implementation patterns (synchronous, asynchronous,
request/response, etc.), and distributed system design principles.
• Experience with architecture modelling standards and tools (e.g. UML, BPMN, ArchiMate;
Sparx EA, LeanIX, ARIS, Visio).
2. DevSecOps Engineering
• Experience with cloud-native technologies, including containers and orchestration platforms
(Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, Tanzu).
• Practical knowledge of Infrastructure as Code and IaC tools (e.g. Terraform, Ansible, Ansible
Tower, CloudFormation, HashiCorp Vault).
• Understanding of microservices architectures and cloud computing concepts.
• Experience with scripting and automation languages used in operational contexts (e.g. Python,
Yaml, Bash, PowerShell, Ruby, Perl).
• Experience with DevSecOps practices and CI/CD pipelines supporting automated build, test and
deployment processes.
3. IT Infrastructure management
• Proven experience in the design and operation of high-availability infrastructures.
• Knowledge of networking technologies, including DNS, Load Balancing, Reverse Proxies,
Routing and Switching, VPNs and basic networking troubleshooting.
• Knowledge of security technologies such as Firewalls, VPN/IPsec, intrusion
detection/prevention systems and SIEM solutions.
• Experience with storage and backup technologies, including block, file and object storage
solutions (e.g. Hitachi, EMC, AWS S3, etc.).
• Experience with enterprise operating systems (e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Windows Server).
• Experience with virtualisation platforms (e.g. VMware vSphere, Nutanix, KVM).
• Knowledge of databases management systems (e.g. Oracle DB, Oracle RAC, Microsoft SQL
Server, MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB).
• Experience with middleware technologies (e.g. Oracle WebLogic, SOA, OSB, JMS; Apache
Tomcat EE; IBM MQ; Axway API Gateway; WildFly; Apache Kafka; etc.).
• Strong experience with container and kubernetes platforms, DevSecOps and CI/CD tools (e.g.
Docker, Podman, VMware Tanzu, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon ECS/EKS; Helm, Bitbucket,
Bamboo, Nexus, Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab Argo CD, etc.).
• Knowledge of monitoring and observability solutions (e.g. Tivoli, OEM, Dynatrace, Splunk,
Elastic Stack, Prometheus, Grafana, etc).
• Knowledge of public, hybrid, private, and sovereign cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Azure, OCI,
OVH).
• Experience with service management, collaboration, and application lifecycle management tools
(e.g. ServiceNow, SMT; Atlassian Confluence, Jira; GitLab; Microsoft 365 products, etc.).
4. IT Service Management
• Experience contributing to service strategy, design, transition, operation, and continual service
improvement activities, ensuring alignment with availability, capacity, continuity and supplier
management requirements.
• Participation in change management processes, including interaction with Change Advisory
Board (CAB) to assess and approve system modifications.
• Support for incident and problem management through architecture-level analysis and
documentation, and root cause analysis for recurring issues.
• Familiarity with Configuration Management practices and maintenance of asset records within a
CMDB (Configuration Management Database).
• Ability to define and support SLAs/OLAs, ensuring infrastructure design meets performance
and availability targets.
• Contribution to Continual Service Improvement (CSI) efforts, including performance tuning,
risk reduction, and cost optimization
• Skilled in writing architecture diagrams, technical documentation, and SOPs
Due to the particular nature of a large international organization such as the European Commission,
candidates should also have the following non-technical skills:
• Capability of integration in an international/multicultural environment, rapid self-starting
capability and experience in working in team.
• Ability to participate in multilingual meetings.
• Ability to work in multi-cultural environments, on multiple large projects.
• Excellent Team Player
• Ability to understand, speak and write in English (C1/C1); having good working knowledge or other
European languages (French, German in first place, C1/C1) will be an asset.