The Organisation

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We believe in the power and potential of every child but know this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it is girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges girls and vulnerable children face. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and we enable children to prepare for and respond to crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

For over 85 years, we have rallied other determined optimists to transform the lives of all children in more than 80 countries.

We won’t stop until we are all equal.

The IT solution team adopts a technology focused approach in delivering business benefit. Plan business teams engage with us to solve their most complex problems, help shape technology strategies and most importantly, to deliver those strategies through modern technology solutions.

The Opportunity

This is an exciting opportunity for someone with extensive experience of solutions architecture and oversight, who will act confidently as a direction setter and subject matter expert, engaging positively with key business and technical stakeholders.

The Solution Architect role underscores the importance of comprehensive data and digital solution design to ensure a cohesive and well-managed architecture for the organisation, supporting its long-term operations. Through the adoption of a modular approach specifically tailored to the systems within the organisation, this position aims to enhance adaptability, scalability, and sustainability. Its scope extends to encompassing the broader global strategic and operational architecture.

Key Accountabilities

Your subject matter and anticipated outcomes may differ greatly from one project to another. This versatility in role presents fresh and compelling prospects, necessitating a keen ability to adjust. Your capacity to adapt will be crucial as the expectations vary. Depending on the project, you will be expected to:

• Support Plan in creating and assessing their global technology strategies and roadmaps, ensuring they are investing in the right technology and delivering in the right order.
• Support delivery programs by crafting contemporary and innovative Solution Architectures and Technical Designs tailored to the scope of work, collaborating with business owners, analysts, development teams, and program managers.
• Persistently engage in learning, refinement, and adaptation to the evolving demands of the business. Explore new subject areas as needed, such as novel products and services or solutions aimed at addressing humanitarian crises.
• Fulfil the role of a technology leader, providing support to Plan throughout project/program lifecycle, including discovery, requirements gathering, solution design and development, end-to-end testing, process definition, change management, and go-live.
• Take a technical lead role in projects or other initiatives to ensure all requirements, including functional, integration, security, performance, quality, and operations are covered
• Responsible to ensure that the architecture requirements for the development, execution, and operations are implemented as designed
• Lead the IT Architecture analysis, design, and implementation, and ensure that policies and standards are followed in respective area
• Support development of architecture reference architecture, including standards and in management of exemptions
• Offer technical governance, across projects and operations ensuring solution quality assurance through design reviews that adhere to industry best practices and standards.
• Analyse technical dependencies to grasp enterprise-wide connections, assess the impacts of changes or delays, identify technology risks, issues, and technical debt, and provide insights into areas of IT fragility for inclusion in the IT backlog of work.
• Defining and implementing an Integrated architecture roadmap with sound enterprise application integration (EAI) standards for the organisation
• Drive a sound architecture roadmap, proactively addressing any uncertainties in solutions, guiding and influencing towards successful business outcomes and risk mitigation.
• Evaluate requests for new technology against the existing Plan technical landscape and provide recommendations for selections.
• Oversee governance activities aimed at ensuring solutions architecture assurance and compliance.
• Lead and guide to uphold solution integrity, ensuring adherence to requirements.

Please follow this link for a full role profile; Plan Solution Architect May 2024.docx

Location: The location of this role can be flexible where Plan International has an office* that can employ on behalf of the Global Hub and you have the pre-existing right to work and live.

Type of Role: Permanent or maximum fixed term contract as per employing office’s standard terms and conditions.

Salary: We will be happy to disclose the salary and applicable benefits to applicants as part of this process, however, please kindly note that the salary and employment benefits will be set according to your location and therefore it is not possible to include full details here.

Closing Date: Monday 8th July

*Applicable locations include: Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, China, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for.

We want Plan International to reflect the diversity of the communities we work with, offering equal opportunities to everyone regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

Plan International is based on a culture of inclusivity and we strive to create a workplace environment that ensures every team, in every office, in every country, is rich in diverse people, thoughts, and ideas.

We foster an organisational culture that embraces our commitment to racial justice, gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion.

Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. This means that we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with and we must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk.

A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International’s Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan International also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this scheme we will request information from applicants previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Please note that Plan International will never send unsolicited emails requesting payment from candidates.