The International Rescue Committee is a global humanitarian aid, relief and development nongovernmental organization.

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Director, Enterprise Architecture and Integrations

Job Type

Full Time , Remote

Qualification

BA/BSc/HND

Experience

8 years

Location

Nairobi

Job Field

UX, Design and Architecture

Major Responsibilities

Architecture and Standards (30%)

Own enterprise integration patterns and technical standards across the application portfolio, and set the architecture decisions that span core platforms (D365, Workday, ServiceNow, Box, M365 and related systems).

Establish and maintain standards for how applications are built, integrated, and supported, and hold delivery teams accountable to them.

Apply a configure-before-develop standard so custom engineering is the exception rather than the default, and provide architecture guidance on new solution requests and platform changes.

Document the integration and architecture boundaries that have historically been managed informally, so the knowledge is held by the organization rather than by individuals.

Integration and Custom Applications (25%)

Own the integration layer across the portfolio: patterns, tooling, and the standards that keep integrations maintainable and observable.

Set technical direction for custom application development, ensuring it follows the same architecture and standards as the rest of the portfolio.

Partner with platform owners to design integrations that fit the broader architecture rather than solving one system at a time.

Team Leadership and Operations (15%)

Lead and manage the teams closest to integration and custom application development, including the integration and custom apps team, the Drupal team, and the Azure platform (application hosting) engineers.

Set priorities, manage workload, and develop team leads and engineers.

Manage the team budget and track spend against plan.

Support the recruitment of technical staff as the team evolves.

Cross-Functional Coordination (15%)

Coordinate with the Head of AI and T4P Engineering on the architecture and integration boundaries between AI and engineering initiatives and the enterprise application portfolio.

Partner with the Enterprise Applications leadership team to align architecture decisions with portfolio priorities and roadmaps.

Coordinate with the data team, including its Director of Analytics, Architecture and Engineering, on data architecture and integration boundaries across the portfolio.

Coordinate with GIS and Infrastructure on shared platform boundaries, including Azure, to clarify roles and responsibilities across teams.

Work with the Director, AI Platforms and Digital Workplace on the boundaries between the digital workplace stack and the enterprise application portfolio.

Governance and Documentation (15%)

Maintain documentation of architecture decisions, integration patterns, and technical standards.

Ensure architecture and integration work aligns with organizational policies, data privacy requirements, and the IRC’s governance frameworks.

Surface architecture risk and technical debt plainly, and bring open questions forward rather than presenting closed plans.

Establish enterprise architecture into the organization's operations and governance: define architecture principles, set up a review process and decision rights for architecture choices, and embed those into how solutions are proposed, funded, and approved across the portfolio.

Required Experience and Skills

Strategy and Leadership

8+ years of experience in IT, enterprise applications, or architecture roles, with at least 3 years in a leadership position managing a team.

Experience setting architecture direction and technical standards in an enterprise environment.

Ability to translate organizational needs into clear integration patterns and architecture decisions.

Track record of managing budgets for technology work.

Architecture and Integration

Deep working knowledge of enterprise integration patterns, API management, and integration tooling across a multi-platform environment.

Strong working knowledge of enterprise platforms such as ERP (D365 F&O), HCM (Workday), ITSM (ServiceNow), and collaboration platforms (M365, Box).

Experience owning technical standards and holding delivery teams accountable to them.

Comfort assessing build-versus-configure tradeoffs and steering work away from unnecessary custom development.

Demonstrated experience establishing enterprise architecture governance: defining architecture principles, standing up an architecture review process, and embedding architecture decision rights into how an organization prioritizes and funds technology work.

Custom Development and Delivery

Hands-on background in application development and integration delivery. This role is expected to work hands-on at the start, designing integrations, reviewing code, and troubleshooting failures directly, and to shift toward oversight as the team grows.

Experience leading custom application and web teams (Drupal experience a plus).

Communication

Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to explain architecture decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Comfortable surfacing open questions and risk plainly.

Preferred

Experience in a nonprofit, international development, or humanitarian sector IT environment.

Experience coordinating architecture boundaries across infrastructure and applications teams.

Experience with API management platforms (e.g., Azure APIM, Apigee).

Experience with event-driven and messaging architectures (e.g., Azure Service Bus, Kafka).

Familiarity with cloud-native integration tooling (e.g., Azure Functions, Logic Apps, iPaaS solutions).

Experience building on serverless and microservices patterns, not only monolithic architectures.

Organization

The following positions report into this role:

• Integration and Custom Apps Team Lead
• Drupal Team (day-to-day led by the Drupal manager)
• Azure Platform (Application Hosting) Engineers

• Own enterprise integration patterns and technical standards across the application portfolio, and set the architecture decisions that span core platforms (D365, Workday, ServiceNow, Box, M365 and related systems).
• Establish and maintain standards for how applications are built, integrated, and supported, and hold delivery teams accountable to them.
• Apply a configure-before-develop standard so custom engineering is the exception rather than the default, and provide architecture guidance on new solution requests and platform changes.
• Document the integration and architecture boundaries that have historically been managed informally, so the knowledge is held by the organization rather than by individuals.
• Own the integration layer across the portfolio: patterns, tooling, and the standards that keep integrations maintainable and observable.
• Set technical direction for custom application development, ensuring it follows the same architecture and standards as the rest of the portfolio.
• Partner with platform owners to design integrations that fit the broader architecture rather than solving one system at a time.
• Lead and manage the teams closest to integration and custom application development, including the integration and custom apps team, the Drupal team, and the Azure platform (application hosting) engineers.
• Set priorities, manage workload, and develop team leads and engineers.
• Manage the team budget and track spend against plan.
• Support the recruitment of technical staff as the team evolves.
• Coordinate with the Head of AI and T4P Engineering on the architecture and integration boundaries between AI and engineering initiatives and the enterprise application portfolio.
• Partner with the Enterprise Applications leadership team to align architecture decisions with portfolio priorities and roadmaps.
• Coordinate with the data team, including its Director of Analytics, Architecture and Engineering, on data architecture and integration boundaries across the portfolio.
• Coordinate with GIS and Infrastructure on shared platform boundaries, including Azure, to clarify roles and responsibilities across teams.
• Work with the Director, AI Platforms and Digital Workplace on the boundaries between the digital workplace stack and the enterprise application portfolio.
• Maintain documentation of architecture decisions, integration patterns, and technical standards.
• Ensure architecture and integration work aligns with organizational policies, data privacy requirements, and the IRC’s governance frameworks.
• Surface architecture risk and technical debt plainly, and bring open questions forward rather than presenting closed plans.
• Establish enterprise architecture into the organization's operations and governance: define architecture principles, set up a review process and decision rights for architecture choices, and embed those into how solutions are proposed, funded, and approved across the portfolio.

• Deep working knowledge of enterprise integration patterns, API management, and integration tooling across a multi-platform environment.
• Strong working knowledge of enterprise platforms such as ERP (D365 F&O), HCM (Workday), ITSM (ServiceNow), and collaboration platforms (M365, Box).
• Experience owning technical standards and holding delivery teams accountable to them.
• Comfort assessing build-versus-configure tradeoffs and steering work away from unnecessary custom development.
• Demonstrated experience establishing enterprise architecture governance: defining architecture principles, standing up an architecture review process, and embedding architecture decision rights into how an organization prioritizes and funds technology work.
• Hands-on background in application development and integration delivery.
• Experience leading custom application and web teams (Drupal experience a plus).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to explain architecture decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable surfacing open questions and risk plainly.
• Experience with API management platforms (e.g., Azure APIM, Apigee).
• Experience with event-driven and messaging architectures (e.g., Azure Service Bus, Kafka).
• Familiarity with cloud-native integration tooling (e.g., Azure Functions, Logic Apps, iPaaS solutions).
• Experience building on serverless and microservices patterns, not only monolithic architectures.

• BA/BSc/HND
• 8+ years of experience in IT, enterprise applications, or architecture roles, with at least 3 years in a leadership position managing a team.
• Experience setting architecture direction and technical standards in an enterprise environment.
• Ability to translate organizational needs into clear integration patterns and architecture decisions.
• Track record of managing budgets for technology work.
• Experience in a nonprofit, international development, or humanitarian sector IT environment.
• Experience coordinating architecture boundaries across infrastructure and applications teams.