Payments Solution Architect

PricewaterhouseCoopers South African Firm; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,500,000 - 2,100,000; Full time

Job summary

PwC in Johannesburg seeks a Management Level Senior Manager to drive strategy consulting across payments ecosystems and enterprise initiatives. You will lead cross-functional teams, shape architecture and delivery plans, and partner with clients to translate strategic goals into actionable roadmaps and measurable outcomes.

The role requires deep expertise in strategy, strong leadership, and the ability to manage multiple stakeholders in fast-paced environments, with a track record of delivering

Qualifications

• Clear, impactful and engaging messages that tell a holistic story.
• Ability to apply systems thinking to identify underlying problems or opportunities.
• Validate outcomes with clients and act on feedback.
• Lead teams through complexity with composure in uncertain situations.
• Initiate open coaching conversations at all levels.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical delivery and integration across multiple workstreams and vendors.
• Define and maintain solution and integration architectures aligned with requirements.
• Translate business and regulatory needs into technical specifications and designs.
• Manage stakeholders, suppliers and regulators to support decision-making.
• Promote modern engineering practices (Agile, DevSecOps, CI/CD, automated testing) and continuous improvement.

Skills

Storytelling

Systems thinking

Client feedback

Decision making

Coaching conversations

Education

Bachelor's degree in IT/Engineering

Job description

Management Level Senior Manager Job Description & Summary

At PwC, our people in strategy consulting focus on providing strategic guidance and insights to organisations. They analyse market trends, assess business performance, and develop recommendations to help clients achieve their goals. These individuals work closely with clients to identify opportunities for growth, optimise operations, and enhance overall business performance. As a corporate and business strategy consultant at PwC, you will analyse client needs, provide consulting services across different strategic areas, and offer guidance and support to help clients develop and implement effective strategies that align with their business objectives and drive growth. Growing as a strategic advisor, you leverage your influence, expertise, and network to deliver quality results. You motivate and coach others, coming together to solve complex problems. As you increase in autonomy, you apply sound judgment, recognising when to take action and when to escape. You are expected to solve through complexity, ask thoughtful questions, and clearly communicate how things fit together. Your ability to develop and sustain high performing, diverse, and inclusive teams, and your commitment to excellence, contributes to the success of our Firm.

Examples of the skills, knowledge, and experiences you need to lead and deliver value at this level include but are not limited to:

• Craft and convey clear, impactful and engaging messages that tell a holistic story.
• Apply systems thinking to identify underlying problems and/or opportunities.
• Validate outcomes with clients, share alternative perspectives, and act on client feedback.
• Direct the team through complexity, demonstrating composure through ambiguous, challenging and uncertain situations.
• Deepen and evolve your expertise with a focus on staying relevant.
• Initiate open and honest coaching conversations at all levels.
• Make difficult decisions and take action to resolve issues hindering team effectiveness.
• Model and reinforce professional and technical standards (e.g. refer to specific PwC tax and audit guidance), the Firm's code of conduct, and independence requirements.

Brief Description

Join the team driving South Africa's Payments Ecosystem Modernisation (PEM) programme and help define, integrate and deliver the next generation of payment ecosystem capabilities. This role requires an individual who can operate comfortably at both strategic and detailed levels, moving seamlessly between executive discussions, architecture reviews, vendor engagements, integration planning sessions and hands-on technical design activities.

Detailed Description(Key Performance Areas)

The successful candidate will be responsible for the following key performance areas:

Technical Delivery and Integration Leadership

Coordinate and drive the delivery of initiatives across the Payments Ecosystem Modernisation (PEM) portfolio. Maintain and manage payments technical dependencies, risks, issues, assumptions and decisions across multiple workstreams, suppliers and stakeholders. Coordinate delivery activities across SARB teams, suppliers, industry participants and technology partners. Facilitate technical planning, integration, alignment and decision-making forums. Lead the identification and resolution of cross-functional and cross-supplier integration challenges. Coordinate environment readiness, deployment planning, release management and implementation activities. Support testing, quality assurance, defect management and production readiness processes. Prepare technical reports, decision records and governance artefacts. Provide technical leadership and guidance to delivery teams and stakeholders.

Solution and Integration Architecture

Contribute to the development and evolution of solution architectures across the PEM portfolio. Define and maintain solution, integration and interoperability architectures that align with business, technology, security and operational requirements. Produce and maintain architecture artefacts, including solution designs, integration models, system interaction diagrams, sequence diagrams and data flows. Review and assess supplier and stakeholder solution designs for alignment with architecture principles, standards and programme objectives. Collaborate with enterprise, solution, security and infrastructure architects to ensure consistency and compliance across the programme landscape. Assess the impact of proposed changes on architecture, integrations, security, operations and delivery plans. Contribute to architecture governance, technology roadmaps and future-state ecosystem capabilities.

Technical Analysis and Specification Development

Analyse business, operational and regulatory requirements and translate them into solution designs and technical specifications. Develop and maintain solution designs, technical specifications, interface specifications, API specifications, non-functional requirements, integration contracts and technical decision records. Define and document integration requirements, interface behaviours, message structures, security requirements and operational considerations. Ensure traceability from business requirements through architecture, design and implementation. Provide technical guidance and clarification during design, build, testing and implementation activities. Review technical deliverables to ensure quality, completeness and alignment with programme objectives.

Stakeholder and Vendor Management

Build and maintain effective relationships with business stakeholders, suppliers, regulators, industry participants and technology partners. Facilitate collaboration between business and technical stakeholders to support informed decision-making. Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. Provide technical input into procurement, commercial governance and vendor management activities.

Technology Delivery and Continuous Improvement

Promote modern engineering and delivery practices, including Agile, DevSecOps, CI/CD and automated testing. Support the adoption of architecture, integration and engineering standards across the PEM portfolio. Identify opportunities to improve delivery efficiency, solution quality, integration effectiveness and operational resilience. Drive knowledge transfer and technical capability development within the PEM programme.

Job Requirements

The successful candidate should possess:

• A Bachelor's degree, National Diploma (NQF 6), Advanced Diploma, Engineering qualification or equivalent qualification in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• A minimum of 10 years' experience in technology delivery, systems integration, architecture, software engineering or related disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex technology initiatives involving multiple suppliers, stakeholders and technology platforms.
• Experience in solution architecture, integration architecture, technical design and the development of technical specifications within enterprise-scale environments.
• Strong knowledge of modern software delivery practices, including Agile delivery, DevSecOps, CI/CD, testing and release management.
• Experience with API-led integration, event-driven architectures and cloud-native platforms.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication and facilitation skills
• Experience within financial services, payments, digital identity, financial market infrastructure or other regulated sectors will be advantageous.

The following would be advantageous:

• Experience with digital identity, verifiable credentials, trust registries, trust frameworks or public key infrastructure (PKI) solutions.
• Experience with payment ecosystems, digital payments and financial market infrastructure.
• Experience with AWS cloud platforms and cloud-native solution architectures.
• Experience working within large-scale transformation programmes involving multiple suppliers, delivery partners and external stakeholders.
• Relevant architecture, agile, delivery or project management certifications (e.g. TOGAF, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, PMP, PRINCE2, SAFe or Scrum certifications).
• Experience operating within multi-supplier delivery environments and complex technology ecosystems.

Attitude and Adaptability

• A proactive, solution-oriented and delivery-focused mindset.
• Strong leadership and influencing skills without relying on formal authority.
• The ability to operate effectively in complex, fast-changing and ambiguous environments.
• A collaborative approach and the ability to build productive relationships across organisational and supplier boundaries.
• Sound judgement, attention to detail and a structured approach to problem-solving.
• The confidence to challenge constructively while maintaining strong stakeholder relationships.
• A commitment to continuous learning, knowledge sharing and technical excellence.

Travel Requirements

Travel Requirements Available for Work Visa Sponsorship?

Job Posting End Date November 16, 2026