About IAG Tech

IAG Tech is a community of IT and digital professionals from across the International Airlines Group (IAG). We drive the technology behind some of the biggest and most successful brands in global aviation, including British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia.

Brought together in 2019, we are a unique community with a shared vision to deliver Technology Excellence and be recognised as industry leaders in the use of technology.

Our mission is to delight customers, enable employees, accelerate business performance, protect our business and increase shareholder value, through the innovative and agile use of technology and data.

We use product-centric delivery teams using agile methods to implement new capabilities at pace and maximise business outcomes. With a relentless focus on improving system performance and stability, we continually strive to find new and better ways to innovate and support the Group.

Our Values

At IAG Tech we share common values to help us create the right culture to underpin our thriving community:

Innovation | we value identifying new ways of using technology to solve business challenges

Empowerment | we value giving people the freedom to operate, that they take accountability, and collaborate with colleagues

Professionalism | we value having and developing the right knowledge and competency to be able to do our jobs to the best of our ability

Transparency | we value honesty and integrity and always share the reality in a manner the business understands

Agility | we value responsiveness, speed and flexibility in everything we do

We celebrate when we see great examples of our values in action and challenge each other when we see these values being ignored.

We are part of International Airlines Group (IAG), one of the world’s leading airline groups and owner of some of the biggest brands in the sky. 

With a diverse workforce spread across four countries, IAG GBS provides creative and innovative solutions to drive sustainable transformation by delivering finance, procurement and airline services, as well as group-wide systems across IAG. Each operating company benefits from the GBS centralised model, driving efficiencies, automation and economies of scale. 

IAG Tech’s vision is to increase shareholder value, accelerate business performance, delight customers, enable employees, and protect our business through the innovative and agile use of technology and data. 

A Principal Solution Architect is required for within the IAG Tech for British Airways organisation leading the solution architecture within the Commercial area, specifically for the BA Digital (ba.com and mobile apps) and BA Holidays areas. 

Purpose of the role  

• Lead the solution architecture for the Product Manager and across their area, effectively influencing stakeholders to help define and deliver the future state adhering to policies, standards and roadmaps. 

• Defines solutions to complex business problems using a wide range of artefacts, methods and tools and uses expertise and knowledge within a specific area to drive the transformational change of applications. 

• Facilitates the structuring of business problems to ensure functional and non-functional requirements are clearly understood, aligned with business objectives and are traceable in the technical solution design. During the implementation phase, ensures any deviations from the agreed solution are managed with the project to deliver a successful outcome.  

• Maintains a view of business and technical capabilities and applications across their area ensuring technical integrity and alignment with business requirements and the ongoing support of applications in line with obsolescence and security requirements.   

• Ensures that strategic transformational change is embedded within IAG Tech, influencing and leveraging relationships to gain buy-in of internal and external stakeholders.  

• Identification and execution of continual improvement opportunities, ensuring the best outcomes for IAG and its operating companies, driving optimal solutions through the implementation of the architecture roadmaps. 

• Management of key supplier relationships, ensuring the quality of supplier deliverables meets Group standards and fit with strategic business requirements on a continuing basis. 

• Identify opportunities to work across IAG Tech to underpin the successful delivery of major initiatives. 

Accountabilities 

Working in partnership with IAG Tech and the business to: 

• Provide technical leadership across a number of business or technical domains and the expertise to drive forward solutions, ensuring alignment with the business and technical strategic vision and goals  

• Provide expertise to the Business, Heads of Domain, Senior Delivery Managers etc. and their teams in relation to all aspects of Solution Architecture. 

• Collaborate with Architects in their immediate and wider areas (e.g. Tech Office) to ensure solutions are fit for purpose and aligned with business and technical architectures and strategic direction. 

• Ensure all solution architecture activity across their area is aligned with Tech Office policies and standards and roadmaps with a focus on consistency and efficiency of approach ensuring a balance between quality, cost and timescales.  Identifies and resolves any potential non-compliance.  

• Ensure best in class solutions that minimise customisation, through Solution design that integrates world-class applications. 

• Recognise opportunities for business or IT change, communicates them persuasively to appropriate stakeholders. 

• Follow the agreed methods and tools for architecture and promote and support these.   

• Lead, coach and mentor other solution architects to enable their development. 

• Communicate and negotiate with all relevant stakeholders (both business and IT) to ensure a balance of usability and fit with the enterprise architecture. 

• Ensure sufficient quality review points are built into initiatives, that all interdependencies have been considered and an appropriate level of architectural artefacts produced. 

• Lead architectural reviews across their area to promote consistency, quality and learning. 

• Build strategic supplier relationships where third-party work or packages involve significant architectural decisions. Evaluates and approves third-party deliverables on behalf of IAG Tech. 

• Participate proactively in solution and program Agile Ceremonies including system and program increment demos, and input in to solution and program backlogs and management of capture of and prioritisation of capabilities and enablers. 

• e.g. become the voice of quality in estimation and backlog refinement sessions, collaborating with the team to identify and implement improvements via sprint retrospectives.  

This role may require travel and working from multiple sites/locations. Willing and able to travel to participate in meetings, workshops, and other related activities. 

Essential Qualifications  

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience 

Desired Qualification 

• Recognised architecture qualification desirable 

• TOGAF level 1 certification desirable 

Skills 

• Demonstrates clear leadership and an ability to form strong stakeholder relationships at all levels of the organization. 

• A proven ability of influencing and persuading internally and externally at senior levels, leading by example and aligning stakeholder groups around a common vision. 

• Complex problem solving with an ability to resolve conflict and identify best-fit solutions to challenges encountered. 

• Business partnering, working collaboratively as a valued partner with senior stakeholders across a diverse operation, delivering a value-added service to business customers and balancing and finding compromises between opposing views and opinions 

• Ability to recognise priorities and guide others towards the accomplishment of strategic business goals and objectives 

• Embracing and managing both business and IT change as necessary to help shape future direction   

• Ability to work under pressure 

• Innovation - transforming industry trends into practical, cost effective solutions    

• Fluent written and spoken English 

Experience  

• Proven track record of leading/producing complex solution architectures working across the architecture domains (business, data, applications and technology) with experience of several business domains and/or technology areas. 

• Broad solution architecture experience including application development, enterprise integration, service definition and Service-Level Agreements, IT infrastructure and migration planning. 

• Experience of resolving complex solution architecture challenges and managing both business and IT change to help shape future directions. 

• Proven track record of successful stakeholder management at a senior level, with a proven ability of influencing and persuading across the organisation. 

• Experience of and contribution to applicable best practice and/or methodologies and their effective application. 

• Demonstrable awareness of worldwide architecture and technology trends and practice, championing their use to deliver business benefit. 

• Experience of operating across multiple countries and cultures is desirable, but not essential. 

Benefits

The chance to enjoy a challenging career in an exciting, fast-moving environment in a dynamic industry, working in a multi-cultural environment with great offices in many locations. We aim to provide all our people with a work/life balance, as well as the many benefits offered by a global organisation, including health insurance, pension, and performance bonuses

Diversity and Inclusion

IAG Tech is part of the IAG GBS organisation, and our people are at the heart of everything we do. We recognise that we can only deliver the required business outcomes if we have a thriving community of technology professionals. Together we strive to become the very best at what we do.

We focus on making Tech a great place to work, with a community that we feel proud to belong to. To help make this a reality, our people strategy focuses on six key domains: Engagement, Talent Management, Reward and Recognition, Performance Management, Learning and Development and Culture.

We understand the importance of Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace to deliver this strategy – everyone should feel part of our team. We want to foster an inclusive workplace, celebrate individuality and embrace differences so that everyone in IAG Tech can achieve their goals and ambitions, regardless of their personal circumstances or background.

As a Group, IAG has an ambition that 40% of senior management roles are held by women by 2025. IAG Tech fully supports that ambition, and we are working to help make it a reality. With this in mind, we have set ourselves the challenging target of recruiting 50% female colleagues by 2030.