ICT Architect

As a Solution & Development Architect within the Proactive Services team, you are the driving force behind the architectural direction and technical coherence of the applications developed by the team (including Automatic Advice and MAGDA Mock). You make final decisions regarding design choices, while respecting and incorporating team input. In doing so, you safeguard the maintainability and scalability of the applications. You work closely with the Product Owner and Technical Analyst and clearly translate technical decisions into business language.

As an architect, you help design platform extensions, translate business requirements into working systems, guarantee the lifecycle of the applications, enrich the business roadmap with the necessary technical work packages, and contribute to defining user stories. You document architectural decisions and translate them into clear specifications and guidelines for the team. You are eager to learn and prefer thoughtful methodologies over the latest framework hype.

You will join a small and proactive team of doers where open communication is central. Developers actively contribute to design decisions, and you facilitate this process by gathering opinions, challenging ideas, and constructively weighing alternatives. At the same time, you ensure overall coherence and make the final decision. You feel strong ownership of the product and contribute to a results-oriented culture.

Additionally, you regularly coordinate with fellow architects within the Data Integration team and the Data Platform department and follow the guidelines of the architecture chapter. In your work, you apply the three pillars that contribute to a safer, more scalable, and reliable digitalization of the Flemish government:

1. Frameworks that prevent the same mistakes from recurring
2. Infrastructure that enforces quality
3. Decisions that prioritize business value over technical interest, Digitaal Vlaanderen has the mission of building a coherent government-wide information policy and supporting and realizing the transition of the Flemish Government toward a data-driven government. The agency's products and services are organized into programs to maximize synergies and provide optimal services to Flemish Government partners.

Digitaal Vlaanderen is a digitalization agency of the Flemish Government focused on the digital transformation of services and collaboration between governments, citizens, and businesses. It supports Flemish and local governments in their digital transformation and their vision of the government of tomorrow.

Business Context

The MAGDA Datahub (MAximale GegevensDeling tussen Administraties) centralizes federal and Flemish authentic data sources and securely exchanges this data within the Flemish Government. This enables the principle of "collect once, reuse multiple times."

During the current government term, the MAGDA Datahub is being expanded together with the Open and Geo Data Building Blocks into a Flemish Data Integration Platform (VDI platform) to harmonize data flows within the Flemish Government.

Automatic Advice is a logical layer on top of the data that translates regulations into automated decision-making, determining whether citizens or companies qualify for benefits. This allows decisions to be made faster and more consistently while reducing administrative burden for end users.

The MAGDA Mock simulates the MAGDA Datahub with test data, without privacy or security risks. Applications using the MAGDA Datahub, such as Automatic Advice, can therefore be tested safely and in a privacy-friendly manner.

Technical Context

The architect will initially focus on the following objectives:

• Designing scalability improvements for Automatic Advice through generic rule sets
• Architectural leadership and further development of the renewed MAGDA Mock and accompanying Software Development Kit (SDK)
• Optimizing IBM ODM toward enabling partners to manage rule sets independently
• Providing architectural guidance in the PALs project pre-study, focusing on the use of Automatic Advice and MijnBurgerProfiel for developing new applications for local governments
• Safeguarding the technical coherence, maintainability, and evolution of the full application landscape within the team, * Interviews will take place within two weeks after the submission deadline
• External consultants work on their own laptops with virtual access to Digitaal Vlaanderen environments
• Indexation during the assignment may be possible after at least one year, according to Digitaal Vlaanderen guidelines and subject to prior alignment

Important Notice

This assignment is partially funded through the European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). To secure this funding, the "Do No Significant Harm" (DNSH) principle must be respected.

By submitting an offer, the bidder commits to ensuring that the execution of the assignment does not significantly harm the following six environmental objectives:

1. Climate change mitigation
2. Climate change adaptation
3. Water and marine resources (including groundwater)
4. Circular economy
5. Pollution prevention and control
6. Biodiversity and ecosystems

• Demonstrable experience as a specialist architect in a specific domain (networking, security, server infrastructure, application architecture, ERP, ECM platforms, Data Warehouse and BI, etc.) or as an Enterprise Architect with certification
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience with modeling techniques (Archimate, TOGAF, UML, Sparx EA)
• Demonstrable knowledge of all architectural domains plus proven expertise in at least one specialist domain (infrastructure, application, security, data, process, etc.)
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience in various Project Management aspects (costs, timing, coordination, planning, estimations)
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience with business processes in general
• Language requirement: Dutch at European CEFR level C2, * Demonstrable experience as a specialist architect in a specific domain (networking, security, server infrastructure, application architecture, ERP, ECM platforms, Data Warehouse and BI, etc.) or Enterprise Architect
• Must have - 8 years - Expert
• Demonstrable experience with APIs (SOAP or REST)
• Must have - 5 years - Senior
• Demonstrable experience with Java/Spring
• Must have - 8 years - Expert
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience with modeling techniques (Archimate, TOGAF, UML, Sparx EA)
• Must have
• Upload signed NDA document
• Language requirement: Dutch at European CEFR level C2
• Must have
• Demonstrable experience with Linked Data
• Should have
• Demonstrable experience with MAGDA
• Should have
• Demonstrable experience with RabbitMQ or Kafka
• Should have
• Demonstrable experience with TDD
• Should have - 3 years - Medior
• Demonstrable experience with UML
• Should have
• Demonstrable experience with WireMock
• Should have
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience of business processes in general
• Should have
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience of various Project Management aspects (costs, timing, coordination, planning, estimations)
• Should have
• Demonstrable knowledge of Agile Project Management and Systems Thinking
• Should have
• Demonstrable knowledge of all domains plus proven specialist architect expertise in at least one specialist domain (infrastructure, application, security, data, process, etc.)
• Should have, Backend & Integration
• Java
• Spring Boot
• Apache Camel

Messaging & Eventing

• RabbitMQ
• Kafka

APIs & Integration Protocols

• REST
• SOAP

Testing & Simulation

• WireMock

Data Processing & Storage

• SQL

Modeling & Documentation

• UML

Rule Engine

• IBM ODM (Operational Decision Manager)

Data Ecosystem

• SOLID ecosystem for decentralized data management

Additional Standards & Principles

• Semantic data & linked data standards: RDF, JSON-LD (nice to have)
• Strong focus on Test Driven Development (TDD) and clear documentation, Desired Mindset & Soft Skills
• Proactive and self-starting: actively seeks information and opportunities
• Strong communicator: able to explain complex choices clearly to non-technical stakeholders
• Delivery-oriented: pragmatic, focused on progress and results
• Open and constructive: receptive to feedback and willing to challenge own viewpoints
• Team-oriented: encourages participation and collaboration
• Ownership mentality: takes responsibility for decisions and outcomes