Technical Architect
Swiss Re · Bratislava, Slovakia · 1mo ago
Are you a big-picture thinker who loves shaping the way technology is built, governed, and evolved? Do you thrive at the intersection of strategy and engineering, turning complexity into clarity and ambiguity into actionable direction? If so, this is the role where your expertise makes a lasting impact — not just on one product, but across an entire engineering department.
About the Role
As a Technical Architect within our Architecture & QA team, you will be a cornerstone of engineering excellence across Group Functions Shared Engineering. This is a high-impact, high visibility role where you will define the architectural direction, establish quality guardrails, and empower engineering teams to deliver solutions that are secure, scalable, and built to last. You won't just advise from the sidelines — you'll be a trusted partner embedded in the fabric of how we design, build, and continuously improve our technology landscape. And as AI reshapes the way software is built, you'll be at the forefront — helping our engineering community harness its potential responsibly and effectively.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and govern architectural standards across the Group Functions Shared Engineering portfolio, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture principles, security requirements, and compliance obligations
- Conduct architectural reviews and design assessments, providing clear, actionable guidance to engineering teams at critical stages of the software delivery lifecycle
- Develop and maintain reusable architectural patterns, reference architectures, and blueprints that accelerate delivery and promote consistency across teams
- Drive SDLC and QA maturity by establishing engineering guardrails, tracking compliance with quality and security standards, and supporting teams in adopting best practices
- Monitor and report on architectural health across the portfolio, providing visibility into technical debt, risk, and improvement opportunities through meaningful metrics and dashboards
- Act as a trusted advisor and coach to engineering teams, enabling capability uplift through hands-on guidance, workshops, and collaborative design sessions
- Champion continuous improvement by identifying systemic issues, proposing pragmatic solutions, and driving initiatives that raise the bar for engineering quality and consistency
- Collaborate with senior stakeholders, including engineering leads, product owners, and enterprise architects, to ensure architectural decisions are well-informed, well communicated, and aligned with business goals
- Evaluate and recommend emerging technologies and tools, assessing their fit within the enterprise landscape and supporting informed technology decisions
- Lead the strategic adoption of AI-assisted development tools — including AI code generation, automated testing, intelligent code review, and developer copilot technologies - across engineering teams, ensuring responsible and effective use aligned with enterprise standards
- Identify and evaluate AI-powered tooling and platforms that can meaningfully improve developer productivity, code quality, and delivery speed, and build the business case for adoption
- Enable and upskill engineering teams on AI-augmented development practices through enablement sessions, playbooks, and communities of practice, fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous learning
- Collaborate with enterprise architecture and security teams to ensure AI tooling integrations are compliant, secure, and aligned with the organisation's broader AI strategy and risk appetite
- Track and measure the impact of AI adoption on engineering outcomes, using data to iterate on the approach and demonstrate value to stakeholders
About the Team
The Architecture & QA team provides governance, guidance, and enablement to ensure that solutions delivered across the department are secure, scalable, maintainable, and compliant with enterprise standards.
The team drives architectural alignment across the department, establishes and monitors technology and quality standards, and supports engineering teams in adopting best practices throughout the software delivery lifecycle. Acting as a trusted partner rather than a delivery bottleneck, the team promotes consistency, accelerates delivery through reusable patterns, and provides meaningful visibility into architectural health, SDLC maturity, and quality outcomes across the portfolio.
Accountable for defining engineering guardrails, tracking compliance with enterprise architecture, SDLC, QA, and security standards, and enabling continuous improvement through coaching, reviews, metrics, and governance — this is a team that genuinely shapes how great software gets built.
About You
You are a pragmatic, collaborative, and technically credible architect who knows how to balance rigour with agility. You communicate complex technical concepts with clarity and confidence, whether you're presenting to a senior leadership team or pairing with a developer on a design challenge. You bring a growth mindset, a passion for quality, and a genuine desire to make the teams around you more effective. You are excited about the transformative potential of AI in software engineering and have the vision and credibility to guide teams in adopting it thoughtfully, safely, and effectively. You understand that great architecture is not about control — it's about enabling others to build great things.
We are looking for candidates who meet these requirements:
- Proven experience as a Technical Architect or Senior Software Architect, with a track record of defining and governing architecture across complex, multi-team engineering environments
- Deep expertise in cloud-native architecture (preferably AWS, Azure, or GCP), including distributed systems design, microservices, API-first approaches, and infrastructure as code
- Strong knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks and governance practices (e.g., TOGAF or equivalent), with hands-on experience conducting architectural reviews, managing technical debt, and driving standards compliance
- Solid understanding of security-by-design principles, DevSecOps practices, and quality assurance frameworks within an SDLC context
- Hands-on experience with .NET technologies (e.g., .NET Core, ASP.NET, C#), with the ability to engage credibly and collaboratively with .NET development teams, review solution designs, and provide technically grounded architectural guidance within a Microsoft technology stack
- Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with the ability to influence without authority, facilitate alignment across diverse teams, and translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences
These are additional nice to haves:
- Hands-on background as a software engineer or developer, providing credibility and empathy when engaging with delivery teams
- Familiarity with SDLC maturity models and quality metrics frameworks, with experience building or improving engineering measurement practices
- Exposure to platform engineering or developer experience (DevEx) initiatives, including the development of internal developer platforms or golden paths
- Practical experience with AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Amazon CodeWhisperer, Cursor, or similar, and an understanding of how to govern and scale their use responsibly within an enterprise context
- A coaching or mentoring background, with a passion for growing technical capability within engineering communities
Our company has a hybrid work model where the expectation is that you will be in the office at least three days per week
For Slovakia the base salary range for this position is between EUR 3,800 and EUR 6,300 per month (for a full-time role). The specific salary offered considers:
- the requirements, scope, complexity and responsibilities of the role,
- the applicant’s own profile including education/qualifications, expertise, specialisation, skills and experience.
In addition to your base salary, Swiss Re offers an attractive performance-based variable compensation component, designed to recognise your achievements. Further you will enjoy a variety of global and location specific benefits.
Eligibility may vary depending on the terms of Swiss Re policies and your employment contract.
About Swiss Re
Swiss Re is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. We anticipate and manage a wide variety of risks, from natural catastrophes and climate change to cybercrime. Combining experience with creative thinking and cutting-edge expertise, we create new opportunities and solutions for our clients. This is possible thanks to the collaboration of more than 15,000 employees across the world.
Our success depends on our ability to build an inclusive culture encouraging fresh perspectives and innovative thinking. We embrace a workplace where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and develop professionally regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, skillset, thought or other characteristics. In our inclusive and flexible environment everyone can bring their authentic selves to work and their passion for sustainability.
If you are an experienced professional returning to the workforce after a career break, we encourage you to apply for open positions that match your skills and experience.
We may use AI-powered tools to support the review and evaluation of applications for this position. These tools provide additional insights to our recruitment teams, but all hiring decisions are carefully reviewed and made by people. To learn more about how we use AI in recruitment and how we handle your personal data, please review our Data Privacy Statement before applying.
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