Senior Specialist – Information Architect, Architecture Team, ICT Project

ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT

This selection procedure is intended to fill one (1) currently available post.

Europol retains the right to make use of the reserve list to select candidates for similar posts within the organisation, should business needs require so.

Organisational setting:
The ICT Department has the responsibility for devising, delivering and operating critical technology capabilities and solutions supporting the core mission and support processes of Europol. Over 150 internal staff members and a significant number of domain-specific consultants are responsible for devising, developing, delivering and operating information management and communication technology capabilities that ensure enhanced criminal information analysis and exchange among Europol, Member States and third parties.

The ICT Strategy & Execution Coordination Unit is responsible for maintaining/updating the ICT strategic direction and operating model, for the overarching planning coordination and implementation of the project portfolio, governing the ICT landscape and for progressing data science and AI activities. The Unit comprises of teams responsible for: ICT Project Execution & Coordination, ICT Architecture and Data Science & AI. Other activities performed by the Unit include budget forecasting and financial implementation, contract management, procurement coordination in the ICT suppliers’ space and corporate reporting.

The selected candidate will work in a team of architects and engineers, each one predominantly focused in the specific architecture domain area for which they are most competent, but all closely cooperating as a team, coordinated by a Senior Specialist who reports to the Head of ICT Strategy & Execution Unit. 

The selected candidate will cooperate closely with other software, security engineering and operations teams, providing hands-on architecture guidance and contributing to solution engineering, technical product management and system administration in the area of competence.

Purpose of the post:
The selected candidate will together with fellow architects, work on identifying and/or assessing business needs leading to additions or changes to the landscape of information processing solutions at Europol, actively driving or participating in the corresponding analysis, design, engineering and process support, information and data governance aspects. As a consequence, the candidate will be active part of the management of the capabilities and solutions landscape at Europol, owning and driving work in the implementation roadmap towards the intended to-be state.

Reporting lines:
The selected candidate will report to the Head of Team Architecture / Head of ICT Strategy & Execution Unit. 

FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES

The incumbent carries out the following main functions and duties:
• Apply innovative approaches in information processing and management such as data virtualisation, federation, data lakes, data mining and machine learning to facilitate the development of specific ICT solutions; 
• Offer guidance and peer review throughout the design and implementation of ICT solutions;
• Establish and implement effective processes and promote a strong culture for data and information governance;
• Translate Europol-wide information usage and management needs into an information architecture that optimises the efficiency and effectiveness of business services and processes, within the remits of applicable security, compliance, ICT constraints and requirements; 
• Develop and maintain Europol’s information architecture, including ontology and information model and information governance mechanisms for core business and administration;
• Assess business cases, project proposals and deliverables, to determine the impact on, and compliance with Europol’s information architecture;
• Collaborate with colleagues to identify the information needed for adequate execution of business services and processes, and identify new services matching business needs;
• Engage with business analysts and requirements engineers to translate architecture deliverables into adequate ICT solution requirements; 
• Engage with Solution Architects in evaluating and selecting solution patterns, mechanisms and product types required to establish and/or evolve Europol’s data processing capabilities across data acquisition, extraction, cleansing, reporting, analytics, as an enabler to information extraction and handling; 
• Engage with peers in Architecture team to capture information and data flows across the solution landscape as well as supporting the maintenance of capabilities and solutions catalogues;
• Develop solution blueprint and architecture standards, definition and communications with fellow architects, including communications and clarifications to engineering teams as well as business stakeholders;
• Monitor and/or participate in relevant fora, and actively champion internal adoption of interfaces and standards; 
• Perform any other duties in the area of competence as assigned by line management.

REQUIREMENTS - ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION CRITERIA

REQUIREMENTS - ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA:

a. Candidates must
• Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union and enjoy full rights as a citizen;
• Have fulfilled any obligations imposed by the applicable laws on military service;
• Produce appropriate character references as to his or her suitability for the performance of the duties;
• Be physically fit to perform the duties pertaining to the post as further specified in Article 13 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (CEOS);
• Produce evidence of a thorough knowledge of one of the languages of the Union and a satisfactory knowledge of another language of the Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the duties.

b. Candidates must have
• A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma when the normal period of university education is four years or more;
OR  
• A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma and appropriate professional experience of at least one year when the normal period of university education is at least three years;
OR
• Professional training of an equivalent level in a relevant area and after having completed the training, at least the number of years of relevant professional experience as indicated below:

Duration of professional training Additional professional experience required for equivalency
More than 6 months and up to 1 year 4 years
More than 1 year and up to 2 years 3 years
More than 2 years and up to 3 years 2 years
More than 3 years 1 year

•  In addition to the above at least 9 years of total professional work experience gained after the award of the diploma.

REQUIREMENTS - SELECTION CRITERIA:

a. Professional experience: 
Essential:
• Information Architecture experience, preferable 4-6 years, including experience in the processes and methods applicable to a mature architecture function, architecture definition, specification, communication and change management, and in providing architecture oversight to ICT projects;
• Experience in developing information architectures including business innovation;
• Experience in architecture modelling, notations and methods applicable to data and information architecture, with experience preferably in Archimate, BPMN, DEMO, TOGAF; 
• Experience in design of data and information processing systems, covering data acquisition, extraction, cleansing, pipelining, reporting, analytics; 
• Experience in information modelling, including in developing definitions and ontologies, and visualisation of information architecture models;

• Experience in data and information governance methods and roles, such as DAMA;
• Experience in developing reports, presentations, and briefings related to Information Architecture outcomes.

b. Professional knowledge:
Essential:
• Knowledge of the concepts, methods, techniques, and representative architectural products in the areas of data and information definition and data and information governance;
• Knowledge of information and data presentation approaches and techniques, at a minimum federation and integration;
• Knowledge of information and data processing techniques in the area of data lakes, streaming data, machine learning, cognitive systems or similar;
• Knowledge of Archimate, TOGAF and possibly DEMO and BPMN preferably demonstrated by a certificate;
• Knowledge of data and information governance methods, roles, techniques, covering data quality, meta/master/reference data management, data integration, data modelling and ontology development.

c. General competencies
Essential:

Communicating:
• Excellent communication skills in English, both orally and in writing;
• Excellent presentation skills;
• Ability to draft clear and concise documents on complex matters for various audiences.

Analysing & problem solving:
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills including the ability to anticipate potential problems, determine and implement solutions;
• Competent user of Microsoft Office applications (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and the internet.

Delivering quality and results:
• High degree of commitment and flexibility;
• High level of customer and service-orientation;
• Ability to display initiative and a drive for improvement.

Prioritising and organising:
• Excellent organizational skills including the ability to plan work load, establish clear priorities and exercise initiative;
• Ability to manage projects and familiarity with project management terminology and methodology.

Resilience:
• Excellent ability to work well both independently and in a team;
• Ability to remain effective under a heavy workload and demonstrate resistance to stress.

Living diversity:
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with co-workers in an international and multi-disciplinary work environment.

Advising:
• Strong ability to synthesise various data into a coherent and relevant whole, transforming it into a valuable and correct conclusion;
• Building constructive relationships with clients, adequately identifying and managing their needs and expectations, and giving well-grounded advice.

d. Additional conditions:
Fulfil the condition stipulated in Article 5 of the Decision of the Executive Director on the Duration of contracts of employment for Temporary Agents, on the start date of the possible contract of employment which may be offered.