Enterprise Architect (Contract)

Equal Experts; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Equal Experts is seeking a contract Enterprise Architect with proven senior-level experience to shape strategic direction across business and technology domains. This role involves defining and evolving architecture principles to support strategic objectives while engaging with C-suite stakeholders. The ideal candidate will possess extensive experience in large organizations, strong consulting skills, and collaboration abilities, particularly with cloud and hybrid architectures.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in defining and evolving enterprise architectures in large organizations.
• Exceptional credibility at C-suite and board level.
• Strong knowledge of cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud architectures.
• Proven track record of producing architecture roadmaps and target operating models.

Responsibilities

• Shape and own the enterprise architecture strategy across various domains.
• Partner with senior stakeholders to align architecture with strategic objectives.
• Act as a trusted advisor for executives and delivery teams.
• Define architecture principles and standards that drive consistency.
• Establish value-adding architecture governance to manage enterprise risk.

Skills

Enterprise architecture evolution

Stakeholder management

Cloud architectures

Architecture governance

Consulting and advisory skills

Collaboration skills

Tools

Kubernetes

Kafka

Job description

We’re looking for contract Enterprise Architects with proven senior-level experience to join the Equal Experts network.

Our Enterprise Architects work across business and technology domains to shape the strategic direction of our clients’ technology estates. They are comfortable engaging with C‑suite stakeholders, translating business strategy into coherent architecture roadmaps, and guiding multiple delivery teams towards a shared target state.

This role includes defining and evolving the enterprise architecture across business, information, application and technology domains, ensuring it supports the organisation’s strategic objectives. It involves establishing architecture principles, standards and governance that enable teams to deliver autonomously while maintaining coherence at the enterprise level.

This role involves working with organisations that adopt modern agile and lean practices – including continuous delivery, product‑aligned operating models and fast feedback loops – to deliver pragmatic, value‑driven outcomes at scale, as well as helping leaders and teams adopt more effective ways of working.

Responsibilities

• Shaping and owning the enterprise architecture strategy, vision and roadmap across business, information, application and technology domains.
• Partnering with senior business and technology stakeholders to align architecture decisions with strategic objectives, investment priorities and outcomes.
• Acting as a trusted advisor and architecture subject matter expert for executives, product leaders and delivery teams.
• Defining and championing architecture principles, standards, reference architectures and patterns to drive consistency, reuse and efficiency across the portfolio.
• Establishing lightweight, value‑adding architecture governance that enables autonomous teams while managing enterprise‑wide risk.
• Producing clear architecture artefacts – capability models, current‑state and target‑state views, transition roadmaps – that aid decision making.
• Designing technology landscapes that are adaptable, resilient, secure and reactive to change.
• Advising on build, buy, integrate and retire decisions, and on vendor and platform selection.
• Being an agile and lean advocate, coaching solution architects, technical leads and delivery teams.
• Engaging with the detail where necessary to validate that strategy and delivery remain aligned.

Required Skills

• Extensive, diversified experience defining and evolving enterprise architectures in large, complex organisations.
• Exceptional consulting, advisory and stakeholder management skills, including credibility at C‑suite and board level.
• Strong experience with cloud, hybrid and multi‑cloud architectures and the operating models that support them.
• Proven track record of producing architecture roadmaps, target operating models and capability models that drive measurable business outcomes.
• Strong interpersonal, facilitation and collaboration skills, with the ability to align diverse stakeholders around a shared direction.
• The ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, compelling narratives for non‑technical and executive audiences.
• Working knowledge across areas such as cloud platforms, microservices, event‑driven architectures (e.g. Kafka), container platforms (e.g. Kubernetes), security and zero trust, data and analytics platforms, and integration. Breadth is essential; not all are required in depth.
• Familiarity with architecture governance, risk, compliance and regulatory considerations relevant to enterprise and public sector clients.