Lead Integration Architect

KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology); Thuwal; On-site; SAR 360,000 - 600,000; Full time

Job summary

KAUST is seeking a Lead Integration Architect/Developer to design, build, and modernize enterprise integration ecosystems across cloud and hybrid platforms. The role blends architecture leadership with hands‑on coding, reusable framework creation, and mentoring of engineering teams to ensure secure, scalable, and well-governed data flows.

Responsibilities span reference architecture, API management, event patterns, data movement, and SDLC governance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a related discipline.
• Evidence of continuous professional development in integration engineering, cloud platforms, DevOps, security, or enterprise architecture.

Responsibilities

• Own the integration reference architecture and roadmap across APIs, iPaaS/connectors, events, and data movement.
• Establish engineering standards, governance, testing, documentation, and security for integrations.
• Build an integration catalogue and provide design assurance for new platforms.
• Lead hands-on engineering of integration services, patterns, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Improve observability, reliability, and incident response for critical integrations.
• Assess legacy interfaces and plan remediation to reduce risk.
• Manage platform budgets, vendor performance, and contract requirements.
• Coach and mentor a small technical team and align with enterprise product teams.

Skills

High‑level integration design

Hands‑on engineering

Cloud and hybrid platforms

API design and governance

DevSecOps practices

Security, privacy, resilience

Stakeholder communication

Leadership and mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Software Engineering/IT/Engineering

Tools

SAP BTP/Integration Suite

Azure Integration Services

AWS

API management

MuleSoft

Boomi

Kafka/Event streaming

Job description

The Lead Integration Architect/Developer is a senior technical leader responsible for designing, building, and modernizing our enterprise integration ecosystems. This dual-impact role requires an expert who can architect modern high-performing, secure cloud and hybrid integration platforms while actively writing code, creating reusable frameworks, and mentoring engineering teams. You will own the technical roadmap for how our distributed applications, SaaS systems, data platforms, and legacy environments connect and communicate smoothly and securely using contemporary DevSecOps practices.

Responsibilities

Architectural Design, Strategy and Governance

• Own the integration reference architecture and roadmap covering integration architecture and patterns, API management, iPaaS/connectors, event-driven messaging, workflow/orchestration, data movement and legacy remediation.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards and governance for API design, event naming, versioning, documentation, automated testing, code review, source control, deployment, secrets management, resilience, error handling and supportability.
• Build and maintain an integration catalogue so KAUST can understand what integrations exist, who owns them, what data they move, which systems consume them, and the operational and security risk attached to each integration.
• Provide technical design assurance for projects and procurements so new platforms meet KAUST integration standards, avoid unnecessary customisation and include suitable APIs, event capability, identity integration, data export and support arrangements.

Engineering and Delivery Leadership

• Design, build and maintain integration services including APIs, events, message flows, connectors, transformation scripts, tests and CI/CD pipelines; personally contribute hands‑on engineering work rather than acting only in an advisory capacity.
• Develop robust and reusable integration patterns using appropriate technologies such as REST/OData APIs, SOAP where unavoidable, IDocs/BAPIs, event/webhook patterns, message queues, SFTP/managed file transfer, ETL/ELT and change data capture.
• Improve operational observability and service reliability by implementing monitoring, alerting, dashboards, audit logging, reconciliation, incident response practices and post‑incident improvement actions for critical integrations.
• Reduce legacy integration risk by assessing point‑to‑point interfaces, database links, batch jobs, unmanaged scripts and vendor feeds, then wrapping, replacing, retiring or tolerating them through an explicit remediation plan.
• Manage assigned platform, vendor and financial responsibilities including input to budgets, licences, vendor performance, service levels and contract requirements related to integration platforms and delivery partners.

Collaboration and Mentorship

• Lead, coach and develop a small technical team including allocation of work, mentoring, performance input, recruitment support, quality assurance and creation of a collaborative engineering culture.
• Act as a trusted advisor to enterprise applications, data, cyber security, identity, infrastructure and business product teams to ensure integration designs support KAUST business processes, master data quality, security, privacy and operational resilience.
• Mature Agile and DevOps ways of working by running a visible backlog, prioritising demand with stakeholders, planning iterative delivery, improving deployment frequency and reducing operational risk through automation.
• Perform other applicable tasks and duties assigned within the realm of the employee's knowledge, skills and abilities in the field of his/her position.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Engineering or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and substantial relevant experience.
• Evidence of continuing professional development in integration engineering, cloud platforms, software engineering, DevOps, cybersecurity, enterprise architecture or related fields.

Preferred

• Relevant professional certifications, for example SAP BTP/Integration Suite, Azure Integration Services, AWS, API management, MuleSoft, Boomi, Kafka/event streaming, Agile, DevOps or architecture certifications. No single vendor certification is mandatory.

Required Skills

• Hands‑on integration engineering expertise across APIs, event‑driven messaging, iPaaS/connectors, workflow/orchestration, batch/file integration, transformations and integration security.
• Contemporary software engineering discipline including clean code/configuration, automated testing, CI/CD, infrastructure‑as‑code concepts, source control, peer review and release management in modern toolsets.
• Architecture with delivery pragmatism able to set standards and future direction while also making practical trade‑offs and delivering working services in complex legacy environments.
• Agile and DevOps leadership able to manage a backlog, run iterative delivery, improve flow, measure outcomes and embed operational accountability into engineering work.
• People leadership and coaching able to guide a small team of technical professionals, lift capability, allocate work, provide feedback and build a high‑trust engineering culture.
• Security, privacy and resilience mindset including authentication, authorization, encryption, secrets, audit logging, vulnerability management, personal data protection and continuity of service.
• Data and master‑data awareness able to understand canonical data, data ownership, lineage, quality, metadata and the separation between operational integration and analytical data pipelines.
• Stakeholder and vendor management able to influence business owners, technical teams, vendors and project teams without losing technical depth or accountability for outcomes.
• Clear communication able to explain integration risks, trade‑offs and progress to executives, architects, engineers, vendors and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Operational problem solving able to troubleshoot complex cross‑system failures, lead incident resolution and convert repeated issues into engineering improvements.
• Practical SAP integration knowledge with the ability to work with SAP standard APIs/events and legacy SAP patterns while avoiding unnecessary customisation and tight coupling.

Preferred Skills

• Experience in higher education, research, government, healthcare, public sector or another complex mission‑driven environment.
• Experience integrating identity and access management, student, HR, finance, procurement, research, facilities, data lakehouse or analytics platforms.