Senior Solution Architect (External )

About Us

At Safaricom Ethiopia, we are a purpose-led technology company dedicated to transforming lives through digital connectivity and inclusive financial services. In under four years, we have grown to serve over 10 million customers, with our network now reaching 55% of Ethiopia’s population – a testament to our bold vision and trusted partnerships.

Guided by core values such as customer obsession, innovation, integrity, and get it done together, we are building a workplace that is dynamic, inclusive, and empowering. We believe our greatest strength lies in our people. That’s why, for two consecutive years, we have proudly get earned the Top Employer Award – in recognition for our unwavering commitment to fostering a supportive, innovative, and inclusive environment to people.

Join Safaricom Ethiopia and be part of a team that is shaping the digital future of Ethiopia. Here, your work has meaning, your voice matters, and your growth is our priority. Together, we are transforming lives for a digital future    

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of scalable, high-performance, and secure technical solutions for clients.
• Create solution architectures, including system designs, integrations, and recommendations for platforms, frameworks, and technologies.
• Lead and participate in architecture reviews, ensuring consistency with company standards and industry best practices.
• Collaboratively oversee the development of the solution as per agreed architecture, evolving it throughout the delivery in the face of changing requirements and feedback from the team.
• Set baseline through introduction of standards and working practices such as coding standards, design principles and tools.
• Ensure that the architecture is being implemented consistently across the team through regular code reviews.
• Experimenting by building prototypes, frameworks and foundations to be consumed by the technical team.
• Responsible for making technology decisions by considering all risk factors, reviewed and evaluated with all the relevant stakeholders of interest.
• Contribute to Architecture Review Board (ARB) on monthly basis. 

• Key Accountabilities And Decision Ownership:

• Leadership:
• Lead the development of end to end solution designs
• Partner with senior commercial and technical stakeholders to ensure effective prioritisation of initiatives
• Oversee implementation of solutions to ensure conformance to design and requirements

  Engagement:

• Partner with commercial stakeholders.
• Partner with vendor teams
• Clear communication of solution design, risks, quantified technical debt and alternative approaches

  Implementation Support:

• Translation of business requirements into practical, achievable and effective solutions.
• Development of solutions that consider industry and domain best practices
• Development of solutions that align to Vodacom, Vodafone and Safaricom best practices and governance requirements (e.g. Security, ISO, SOX compliance)
• Development of clear solutions artefacts that aid delivery teams in understanding integration needs, functionality requirements, capacity plans and associated ongoing support.
• Regular reviews of technical deliverables (incl. functional specs, manuals, test cases, delivery timelines, technical issues) to ensure adherence to the solution design.

  Core Competencies, Knowledge And Experience:

  Business Competencies:

  Working With Others

• Consciously takes steps to make the most of every conversation/interaction
• Identifies people’s needs, interests and motives to be able to influence the decisions they make 
• Communicates simply to excite and engage people 
• Pro-actively adapts own style and approach to build rapport, and work with others more effectively 
• Builds and maintains strong relationships and networks

  Operational Excellence

• Targets effort and resources on high-value, high impact activity   
• Focuses on achieving maximum performance and driving continuous improvement 
• Thinks about processes and problems cross-functionally and end-to-end 
• Uses knowledge of products, technology, process, systems and policy to solve problems

  Creativity And Innovation

• Finds creative ways to exploit opportunities and solve problems 
• Takes risks and pushes what is possible 
• Experiments with unorthodox approaches

Must have Technical / professional qualifications:

• Degree in Science/computer science/Engineering/Business related degree from reputable education institution. 
• 3+ technical background in software development inclusive of databases, applications, Infrastructure, cloud development and 2+ years' experience in solutions architecture and system design.
• Experience of software development lifecycle is essential, in agile and waterfall methodologies. 
• Certification in Solution Architecture and Cloud expertise certification will be an added advantage.
• A “hands-on software architect” capable of sharing software development experience with the rest of the team, which in turn helps them better understand how the architecture is viewed from a development perspective.
• Domain experience in GSM will be an added advantage.
• Ability to identify all the non-functional aspects required for a deploy a secure and performant solution into production.
• Understanding of Microservice and Multiple Architecture Design paradigms will be an added advantage.
• Understanding of Containerization and Kubernetes among modern solution technologies will be an added advantage.

How To Apply

• If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualification and experience, kindly proceed to create/ update your candidate profile on the recruitment portal and then Click on the apply button. Remember to attach your resume