Payments Solution Architect

About the role

PwC is looking for a Senior Manager-level Payments Solution Architect to join the team driving South Africa's Payments Ecosystem Modernisation (PEM) programme. The role defines, integrates and delivers the next generation of payment ecosystem capabilities, requiring someone who works at both strategic and detailed levels, moving between executive discussions, architecture reviews, vendor engagements and hands-on technical design.

Key responsibilities

• Lead technical delivery and integration across the PEM portfolio, managing dependencies, risks and issues across suppliers and stakeholders, and coordinate delivery with SARB teams, suppliers and technology partners
• Facilitate technical planning, integration and decision-making forums, and lead the resolution of cross-functional integration challenges
• Support environment readiness, deployment planning, release management, testing, quality assurance and defect management
• Develop and maintain solution, integration and interoperability architectures, including solution designs, integration models, sequence diagrams and data flows
• Review supplier and stakeholder designs against architecture principles and contribute to architecture governance and technology roadmaps
• Translate business, operational and regulatory requirements into technical specifications, API specifications and interface contracts, ensuring traceability
• Manage relationships with business stakeholders, suppliers and regulators, and give technical input to procurement, commercial and vendor management
• Promote modern delivery practices such as Agile, DevSecOps, CI/CD and automated testing, and drive knowledge transfer and capability development

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree, National Diploma (NQF 6), Advanced Diploma, Engineering qualification or equivalent in IT, computer science, engineering, information systems or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• Minimum of 10 years' experience in technology delivery, systems integration, architecture, software engineering or related fields
• Demonstrated experience leading complex technology initiatives with multiple suppliers and stakeholders
• Experience in solution and integration architecture and technical specification development in enterprise-scale environments
• Experience in financial services, payments, digital identity, financial market infrastructure or other regulated sectors is advantageous

Required skills

• Agile delivery, DevSecOps, CI/CD, testing and release management
• API-led integration, event-driven architectures and cloud-native platforms
• Advantageous: digital identity, verifiable credentials, trust registries, PKI, AWS, and large-scale transformation programmes
• Advantageous: TOGAF, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, PMP, PRINCE2, SAFe or Scrum certifications