EA - Functional Architect

Join Coface, a global leader in credit insurance, as an EA - Functional Architect. In this role, you will design and maintain the business and functional architecture for assigned business domains, capabilities, programs, and initiatives. You will work throughout the initiative lifecycle, partnering with various stakeholders to ensure proposed solutions meet immediate functional needs while remaining consistent and sustainable at the Group level. You will also contribute to the collective architecture practice and maintain architecture content in the enterprise architecture repository.

Responsibilities

• Concevoir et maintenir l'architecture fonctionnelle et commerciale pour les domaines d'activité assignés.
• Traduire les objectifs stratégiques et les besoins commerciaux en modèles d'état actuel et d'état cible.
• Collaborer avec les parties prenantes pour clarifier les besoins, encadrer les options et garantir l'alignement entre la livraison locale et l'architecture cible du groupe.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of total IT experience, including a minimum of 3 years in enterprise, business, functional, solution or application architecture.
• Proven experience defining functional or application target architectures and roadmaps for complex business domains or transformation programs.
• Experience working across the full project or product lifecycle, from framing and option assessment through governance and delivery follow-up.
• Track record of collaborating with business stakeholders, product teams, delivery teams and solution architects across departments or legal entities.
• Master's level (Bac+5 or Master 2) in IT, engineering or a related discipline; TOGAF or equivalent architecture certification is an advantage.

Hard skills

• Strong enterprise, business and functional architecture skills, including business capability modelling (BPMN, C4, diagram sequence), functional decomposition and application architecture.
• Ability to analyze a complex information system, connect business needs to application responsibilities, and define actionable current, transition and target architectures.
• Experience building architecture roadmaps and rationalization scenarios, including dependencies, sequencing, migration impacts, risks and decommissioning opportunities.
• Working knowledge of architecture frameworks and methods such as TOGAF, and ability to apply them pragmatically rather than mechanically.
• Proficiency with architecture modelling tools and an enterprise architecture repository; disciplined approach to metadata quality and traceability.
• Sufficient technical breadth across cloud, integration and APIs, microservices and containers, security, databases and user experience to collaborate effectively with solution architects and challenge solution choices.
• Good understanding of data architecture concepts, including information models, data ownership, quality, lineage and interoperability.
• Ability to assess architecture compliance, articulate trade-offs and produce clear decision material for governance forums.
• Working understanding of the regulatory framework of a regulated financial institution, including GDPR and DORA, sufficient to incorporate compliance constraints into functional architecture.
• Fluent French and English, written and spoken; able to work in an international, multi-entity environment.
• Deep knowledge of Dynamics and / or AWS cloud would be a real plus
• Systems thinking and the ability to step back from immediate delivery pressure to protect a consistent and sustainable target.
• Strong analytical and synthesis skills; able to make complex domains understandable through clear models, narratives and recommendations.
• Influence without direct authority; able to challenge constructively, negotiate trade-offs and build consensus across business and technical stakeholders.
• Excellent verbal and written communication; able to translate between executive, business, product, architecture and engineering audiences.
• Pragmatism and delivery orientation: able to balance target architecture, regulatory constraints, cost, risk and incremental value.
• Rigor, autonomy and strong organization; able to manage several architecture topics and maintain high-quality documentation.
• Curiosity, collaboration and peer mindset; willing to share reusable knowledge, seek review and contribute to the growth of the architecture community.
• Ability to operate proactively in changing environments and make recommendations when information is incomplete, while stating assumptions and risks transparently.

Preferred

• Experience in an international or multi-entity environment; experience in insurance, financial services or another regulated sector is an advantage.