Solutions Architect - Traded Systems

About the role

Reporting to: Head of Solution Architecture, US. Location: Atlanta/Boston. The Solution Architect is responsible for designing, governing, and evolving end‑to‑end technology solutions that support the insurance value chain, including underwriting, policy administration, billing, claims, and distribution. This role partners closely with business leaders, product owners, engineering teams, and third‑party vendors to ensure solutions are scalable, secure, compliant, and aligned with enterprise architecture standards. Hiscox is transforming the applications that support our Traded/Broker business which today includes multiple platforms and technologies. This is a great opportunity to drive change that will have meaningful business benefits. The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with strong insurance domain knowledge and the ability to translate complex business requirements into actionable solution designs.

Responsibilities

• Interact with a range of people, from highly technical software engineers to Senior Executive stakeholders. This means the ability to change their style/approach is essential.
• Identifying what a particular stakeholder needs to know or is concerned about is critical to ensuring that projects address the major stakeholder concerns on an on-going basis.
• Take ownership of the overall architecture strategy/design for a complex program of work and communicate it to all members of a project team.
• Technical, architectural, functional and impact and risk elements of the design need to be conveyed to technical and non-technical members.
• Presenting options, risks, recommendations in a language and a way that shows understanding and technical leadership is essential.
• Document and develop architectural artifacts include As-Is Architecture, Transformation Architecture and End-State or To-Be Architecture.
• Defend these solutions in front of a local and enterprise Architecture Review Board.
• Work closely with technical and business teams to confirm architecture artifacts match current implementations as well as understand how changes affect current and future implementations.
• Partner with corresponding team members ensure all of our downstream system integrations (such as Reporting, Document Production, Finance and others) are supported as the evolution of our core platform progresses.
• Interact with business domain experts and therefore must be comfortable acquiring and using business domain language and knowledge to convey concepts and recommendations.
• Engage with and assist technical teams in delivering the Solution. From understanding testing requirements to being involved with the development of solution using a variety of technologies such as Java (and/or Microsoft .NET) the Solution Architect is required to be able to engage and operate across a broad range of technologies including relational database systems (e.g. Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle), and integration platforms (e.g. webMethods and Apigee).

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in solution, systems, or enterprise architecture
• 5+ years of experience in insurance technology environments
• Strong knowledge of P&C or Commercial insurance operations (policy lifecycle, claims, billing)
• Experience with Core Insurance Platforms
• Clearly stated demonstrable practical experience and understanding of best practice architecture principles
• Strong communication, storytelling and presentation skills; Ability to engage, influence and motivate stakeholders at all levels
• Experienced in an Agile software development environment
• Strong software engineering or lead developer experience – the ability to take that experience up a level to the Solution Architecture space
• Track record of managing the architecture of multiple change projects/programs in a complex environment
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Highly results/outcomes driven, with the energy and determination to succeed in a very fast paced environment where the pace and quality of response is critical to success
• Be a go-to resource for other solution architects and technical architects that are looking for assistance with solving complex architecture issues
• Review other architects solutions and ensure those solutions align with program goals
• Motivated self-starter who can work autonomously and add value in a team
• Excellent interpersonal, organization and time management skills