Chief Architect (Cloud) Infrastructure & Engineering

The organisation

ING, a global financial institution of Dutch origin, extends retail and commercial banking services to customers in over 40 countries. Guided by core values—transparency, integrity, and social responsibility—all 52,000 employees contribute to helping customers manage their financial future.

ING is committed to establishing itself as the Digital Leader in Banking. This ambition is supported by their shift towards global, cloud-based platforms that enable customizable solutions across various geographies and domains.

Central to this transformation is ING’s Infrastructure & Engineering department, responsible for delivering Global Platforms (including Global Data Centers, Global Network Infrastructure, ING Private Cloud, Container Hosting Platform, and various Data Platforms). These platforms support over 10,000 engineers and handle over 60% of ING’s global workload on private cloud, and a significant amount on public clouds, marking a critical juncture in ING’s cloud transformation.

As ING approaches this pivotal moment, the opportunity arises for a new Chief Architect. This role demands not only technical expertise but also interpersonal skills to drive the transformation forward. They will play a vital role in furthering ING’s commitment to innovation and customer-centric solutions, ensuring that the bank’s technological advancements continue to translate into tangible benefits for its customers.

The position

One of the most innovative banks globally, ING is on the brink of a crucial moment in its cloud transformation journey, with 60% of its global workload now transitioned to private cloud along side a significant public cloud footprint. The incoming Chief Architect will bring both technical expertise and exceptional people and communication skills to lead the architecture team, and to lead and accelerate this transformative process.

Tasks & responsibilities

The Chief Architect at ING plays a critical role in defining and driving the execution of the company’s Infrastructure & Engineering Strategy, with a specific focus on advancing cloud transformation initiatives. This pivotal role encompasses the oversight of architecture, design, implementation, and validation of infrastructure, systems, and engineering solutions. A key objective for the Chief Architect is to establish a highly automated, global infrastructure that adheres to ‘shift-left’ principles and leverages ‘everything as code’ for efficiency and rapid deployment. In this capacity, the Chief Architect is instrumental in shaping ING’s future technology landscape, driving innovation, and ensuring the scalability and reliability of the company’s cloud platform to support ongoing growth and market leadership.

The context demands a robust technical cloud infrastructure background, a forward-looking, Infrastructure-as-code, automation-based, and software-minded approach, coupled with a proven track record in advocating and managing the human side of change and adoption.

Team and environment
Reporting hierarchically to the Global Head of Infra & Engineering (I&E) and functionally to the Global Chief Architect, the Chief Architect Cloud and Engineering oversees an international team of approximately 18 highly skilled, architects spread over multi-disciplinary teams across the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Romania, and the Philippines. This role runs the overall architectural governance for Infrastructure & Engineering across all ING entities and vets solution decision across all ING Footprint. It includes talent development within the team, promoting talent mobility, and ensuring maximum effectiveness and efficiency.

The Chief Architect will be an integral part of the global Enterprise Architecture team and Management Team EA, collaborating closely with other Chief Architects of ING internationally. Additionally, they will serve as a key advisor to the executive management team. Effective communication, the ability to build relationships with architects, engineers, and executives, and the ability to present and defend strategies at the board level are paramount in this role.

Candidate profile*

This is an outstanding opportunity for an experienced architect with a strong technical background, proven communication skills, and adept people and stakeholder management. It’s a chance for someone like this to leave an indelible mark on a global organization by building, evangelizing, and managing a Cloud Strategy that will impact the financial lives of over 38 million customers worldwide.

• Over 8 years of experience
• In Architecture
• Senior technical leadership In Infrastructure & Engineering
• With strong people skills and stakeholder management skills
• Excellent communicator

* Research shows that while male candidates feel confident enough to apply when they meet about 60% of the requirements, female candidates only apply when they tick every box. So if this role has your name on it, but you’re not sure about the criteria, we still want to hear from you.

Interested?

You can apply for this position by using the link below. ING is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.