Vacancy Notice 980
INTERPOL is the world’s largest international police organization, with 196 Member Countries. Created in 1923, it facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organizations, authorities, and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime.
INTERPOL strives to achieve a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcomes applications from individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. To achieve our Diversity goals, we encourage applications from women and nationals of under/unrepresented member countries who are passionate about our mission. INTERPOL’s recruitment process is merit-based hence all hiring decisions are made considering the applicant’s qualifications and the needs of the Organization.
Job Title: Solution Architect
Reporting To: Head of Department, Engineering
Location: Lyon
Type of contract: Fixed-term Contract
Duration (in months): 36.00
Grade: 4
Number of post: 1
Level of Security screening: Enhanced
Deadline for application: 28 June 2026
Conditions applying for all candidates
Only professional experience for which candidates can provide official proof of employment will be considered. Candidates could be requested to provide copies of such official documents prior to interviews/test.
* Subsequent extension to this post will be subject to the terms of the Organization’s Staff Manual, to satisfactory performance and to availability of funds.
Tests/interviews in connection to this selection procedure will take place approximately 3 to 4 weeks after the deadline for applications. Applicants are kindly requested to plan their availability during this period accordingly, in case they are short-listed.
Selected candidates will be expected to report for duty approximately two to three months after receiving an offer of employment at the latest.
This selection exercise may be used to generate a reserve list of suitable candidates that may be used to address Organization's similar staffing needs in the future.
SUMMARY OF THE ASSIGNED DUTIES, INCLUDING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE POST
The ICT Executive Directorate defines and delivers the Organization’s IT strategy, operates core systems supporting global law enforcement cooperation, deploys IT solutions to users and member countries, and ensures data and information security. The Executive Directorate is led by the Chief Information Officer (CIO), who sets strategic direction, governs ICT capabilities, and ensures alignment between business priorities, technology, and security across the Organization.
Reporting to the Head of Department – Engineering and Solution Design (ENGI) within the Technology and Engineering Sub-Directorate, led by the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the Solution Architect acts as the technical interface between business needs, Product Squads, and Engineering. Embedded within Product Squads, the role designs secure, scalable, and reliable solutions that meet business objectives while consistently applying engineering standards, reference architectures, patterns, and guidelines defined by Engineering.
The Solution Architect acts as the design authority for both system-level and software architecture, shaping end-to-end solutions that leverage INTERPOL’s shared platforms and capabilities (Artificial Intelligence - AI), Identity, Data, Integration, Cloud and DevSecOps). The role ensures architectures are secure, scalable, and sustainable, aligned with enterprise standards, engineering requirements, and the overall ICT strategy. Working closely with product managers, engineering teams, and within delivery squads, the Solution Architect combines high-level system design with hands-on software architecture, contributing to MVP definition, key technical and software design decisions, and guiding solutions from concept through implementation, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), deployment, and lifecycle management. The role provides senior technical leadership within product squads, supporting the delivery of high-quality software and robust systems while balancing delivery speed with long-term maintainability.
PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND ACTIVITIES
DUTY 1: Product Solution Design Authority (Squad Architecture Ownership)
- Act as the Architecture Design Authority for the Product Squad, accountable for the end-to-end solution architecture and ensuring designs are directly translatable into software implementation.
- Design secure, scalable, resilient, and maintainable architectures aligned with Product Objectives and Definition of Done.
- Translate Epics, Features, and complex business requirements into implementable architectural designs, technical enablers, and non-functional requirements.
- Define and evolve the product technical roadmap, balancing short-term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) delivery and long-term architectural sustainability.
DUTY 2: Platform, AI, and Shared Services Leverage
- Ensure systematic adoption of INTERPOL’s shared engineering platforms and services (AI & Data Platform, Identity, API & Integration, Cloud and DevSecOps tooling).
- Design solutions to comply with data access, security-by-design, privacy-by-design principles, and AI integration such as “LLMs, MCP, RAG”, etc. where relevant.
- Act as a key feedback channel to Engineering by identifying gaps, limitations, or improvement opportunities in shared platforms and services based on Product Squad experience
DUTY 3: Agile Collaboration and Continuous Delivery
- Partner with Product Managers during discovery, backlog refinement, and sprint planning to assess feasibility, architectural impact, and technical trade-offs.
- Collaborate with IT Project Manager and Scrum Masters to proactively identify and resolve architectural or technical impediments affecting delivery flow and predictability.
- Participate actively in Agile ensuring architecture evolves iteratively and remains aligned with product outcomes.
DUTY 4: Engineering Alignment and Competency Development
- Work closely with Engineering team and platform owners to ensure architectural patterns are practical, reusable, and aligned with delivery realities.
- Contribute to the Solution Design Competency Centre by sharing reusable patterns, reference implementations, architectural decisions, and lessons learned.
- Support continuous improvement of shared services through structured feedback, design proposals, and participation in engineering roadmap discussions.
DUTY 5: Architecture Governance and Standards
- Apply Enterprise Architecture principles and standards, including security-by-design, cloud governance, data sovereignty, and compliance requirements.
- Participate in the Technical Architecture Committee (TAC) and the Architecture Review Board (ARB), presenting and reviewing designs at enterprise level.
- Ensure that Squad-level architectural decisions remain consistent with enterprise reference architectures, standards, and strategic directions.
DUTY 6: Technical Leadership and Enablement
- Provide hands-on technical leadership within the Product Squad, mentoring the squad on architectural principles, design patterns, and quality attributes.
- Lead architectural spikes, proofs of concept, and targeted design or code reviews (where applicable) to de-risk complex or high-impact technical choices.
- Promote a culture of engineering excellence, autonomy, accountability, balancing delivery speed, and long-term maintainability.
DUTY 7: Continuous improvement
- Promote innovation and continuous improvement within the Product Squad and across the Technology and Engineering Directorate.
- Actively contribute to improving practices, tools, standards, and ways of working across ICT.
DUTY 8: Software Architecture Execution and Quality
- Contribute to and, where appropriate, lead the definition and evolution of software architecture practices, development frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and quality standards.
- Support Product Squads through hands-on technical involvement in complex or high-risk areas, ensuring software solutions are robust, maintainable, and aligned with architectural and business objectives.
- Assess technical feasibility, delivery risks, and cost implications of architectural alternatives, supporting informed decision-making at product and enterprise levels.
Perform any other related duties as required by the hierarchy.
QUALIFICATIONS, COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS/QUALIFICATIONS, COMPÉTENCES ET APTITUDES
Education and qualification required:
Essential
- 3 to 4 years’ University degree or equivalent level of training in Computer Science or a related discipline.
Desirable
- Certification ITIL Foundation
- Certification in architecture frameworks (TOGAF).
- Certification in IT governance and methods (such as COBIT…).
- Agile Certifications (e.g. Scrum, SAFe, or equivalent Agile delivery frameworks).
Experience required:
- At least 5 years of total experience in IT in large and complex organizations, out of which 2 years of experience as a Solution Architect or equivalent.
languages:
- Fluency in English.
- Proficiency of a second official working language of the Organization (Arabic, French or Spanish) would be an additional asset.
Abilities required:
Technical Background
- Strong hands-on experience in enterprise full-stack application development using Java/Spring Boot and Angular within Agile delivery environments.
- Practical experience leveraging AI-assisted software development tools and practices (e.g., context specification, SDD) to accelerate software design, implementation, testing, documentation, and code review activities.
- Proven experience in working in Agile/Scrum Delivery teams
- Strong programming background in Java and/or another object-oriented programming language
- Solid architectural experience with at least two of the following patterns:
- Microservices architectures
- Event-driven / event-based architectures
- Message brokers
- Service mesh
- Strong knowledge of RDBMS (preferably Postgre/SQL) and NoSQL databases
- Proven experience in REST API design, including: Professional Skills DESIRABLE SKILLS
- API best practices and industrialization
- Authentication and authorization
- Access control and security considerations
- Hands-on experience with containerized platforms such as Kubernetes, Docker
- Practical experience Designing and operating CI/CD pipelines
- Very good communication skills
- Capable of defending their point of view
- Ability to work in multi-cultural / international environments.
- Knowledge of BPMN or other process modeling frameworks
- Practical exposure to:
- AI technologies (e.g. MCP or similar)
- Modern data architectures (Data Lakes, Vector Databases, etc.)
- Understanding and application of Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC)
- Experience with public cloud infrastructures, such as AWS, Azure or GC
- Practical knowledge of the Criminal Police
