Solution Architect

Willis Re • New York, NY

3d • $140,000 - $180,000

About The Position

Willis Re is building its global technology estate from the ground up, unencumbered by legacy and designed around data, analytics and modern cloud platforms. We are looking for a Solution Architect to shape and deliver the solutions that power our reinsurance broking, analytics and client-facing platforms. Working closely with the Head of Architecture & Engineering, business stakeholders and strategic delivery partners, you will own end-to-end solution design across a portfolio of greenfield initiatives.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience, grounded in hands-on software engineering and progressing into solution architecture over the last 4+ years.
• Designed data-intensive systems you also helped build, ideally in insurance, reinsurance or wider financial services.
• Current, practical programming skills, ideally in C#/.NET or Python, with strong SQL, working knowledge of modern UI frameworks such as React or Angular with TypeScript, and hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) and AzureDevops.
• Comfortable writing production-quality code for proofs of concept and pairing with engineers.
• Deep expertise in Azure infrastructure and platform services, including networking, security, identity, compute and integration services, along with hands-on experience of CI/CD tooling such as Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
• Depth across architectural patterns such as microservices, event-driven, API-led, lakehouse/medallion and domain-driven design, with good judgement on when to apply each.
• A strong track record architecting data-intensive solutions handling large data volumes, with experience across cloud data platforms, data pipelines and SQL-based technologies.
• Strong integration experience across external systems, including REST APIs, messaging and event-driven architectures, and secure file and data exchange, with experience using canonical data models and anti-corruption layers.
• Strong grounding in security architecture, including authentication and authorisation patterns (OAuth 2.0, OIDC, Microsoft Entra ID, RBAC), zero-trust principles, and designing for compliance in regulated financial services (data privacy, cross-border data residency and audit requirements).
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex business requirements into pragmatic technical designs and to influence stakeholders at all levels.

Nice To Haves

• Experience designing agentic or AI-enabled solutions, including patterns such as retrieval-augmented generation, tool and API integration, evaluation and human-in-the-loop design, would be a significant advantage, though it is not essential.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted engineering tools such as Claude Code or Claude Cowork is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design secure, scalable, cloud-native solutions on Microsoft Azure, spanning infrastructure, PaaS services, networking, identity, security and observability.
• Design solutions around our data lake platform, architecting performant pipelines, sound data models and strong governance for large volumes of reinsurance placement, exposure, claims and market data.
• Take a hands-on role in building proofs of concept and prototypes to validate designs and support key technical decisions.
• Define and govern third-party integrations with market platforms, carrier and client systems, and vendor SaaS products, using API-first, event-driven and secure data-exchange patterns, with canonical data models and anti-corruption layers to insulate the core platform.
• Embed security and compliance into designs from the outset, covering zero-trust principles, authentication and authorisation (Entra ID, OAuth 2.0), data protection, data residency and auditability, working with security and risk teams.
• Work closely with in-house and partner engineers, setting the engineering standards for a greenfield estate and guiding them through implementation, acting as lead engineer where needed to ensure solutions are built to the agreed designs.
• Produce high-quality solution designs, integration contracts and architecture artefacts, and play an active role in the Architecture Review Board (ARB), presenting your own designs and vetting solution designs from vendors and delivery partners.
• Promote the adoption of AI-assisted engineering tools and practices across the delivery lifecycle.

Benefits

• health and welfare benefits
• paid time off
• 401K savings and other retirement programs
• employee assistance programs

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed