IT Solution Architect

IT Solution Architect

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, dedicated to saving lives in emergencies and building pathways to peace, stability, and prosperity through food assistance. WFP, a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is committed to diversity, inclusion, and the personal & professional development of its employees. Joining WFP offers a unique opportunity to work across global offices with passionate colleagues on impactful humanitarian assistance.

This role is a regular consultancy contract (CST) Level I within the Digital Solutions Delivery Branch (TECD) of the Technology Division (TEC). The duty station for this position is remote working.

Background and Purpose of the Assignment

Reporting to the Head of Corporate Solutions Development, the IT Solution Architect leads the technical aspects of designing and implementing IT solutions. This role provides direction, instructions, and guidance to off-site development teams, ensuring IT solutions are fully compliant with WFP standards and achieve the highest quality in technical usability, user acceptability, and domain suitability.

Accountabilities/Responsibilities

• Design software architecture and data models for IT solutions, supporting the Product Manager in presenting proposals to the Architectural Board.
• Ensure the high technical quality of IT solutions and compliance with WFP standards across architecture, security, technology stack, and user interface.
• Provide clear direction, instructions, and guidance to the remote Development Teams.
• Prepare high-level effort estimations for the development of IT solutions.
• Review and approve prioritized Backlog tickets for Sprint inclusion, checking for completeness, clarity, conciseness, visual representation, dependencies, test data availability, and behavior-driven development (BDD) test scenarios.
• Create necessary technical tickets to ensure high-quality IT solutions and negotiate their prioritization with the Product Manager.
• Set up and maintain IT solution environments, ensuring all IT security monitoring tools are proactive in preventing breaches.
• Collaborate on maintaining the continuous improvement (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) infrastructure.
• Foster an inspiring team environment with an open communication culture.
• If required, act as Scrum Master: championing Scrum, coaching the Development Team, Product Manager, and business on the Scrum process, optimizing delivery flow, planning and scheduling Scrum ceremonies (Sprint planning, Daily stand-up, Sprint demo, Sprint retrospective), and resolving impediments.
• Perform other software development-related duties as necessary.

Qualifications & Experience Required

Education

University degree or a minimum of 8 years of equivalent working experience in software development or related fields.

Experience

3+ years of experience with software development and a proven track record of planning, leading, and executing related projects.

Knowledge & Skills

• In-depth knowledge of web technologies (Python, Django, HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
• Proficiency in developing high-quality IT solutions.
• Knowledge of Git and branch management techniques.
• Knowledge of Scrum.
• Knowledge of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD).

Languages

Fluency in oral and written English is required, with an intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish) or Portuguese being desirable.

Key skills/competency

• Software Architecture
• Data Modeling
• IT Solutions Design
• Technical Leadership
• Security Monitoring
• Scrum Master
• Python/Django
• HTML/CSS/JavaScript
• Continuous Integration (CI)
• Continuous Deployment (CD)