Who we are
For more than 70 years, NATO’s mission has been to preserve peace and security in the Alliance for nearly one billion citizens. The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) and its predecessors have worked tirelessly in providing the means that enable the connectedness and togetherness that keep our Alliance strong. We are the NCI Agency, a team of 3000 civilian and military staff in 29 locations throughout Europe, North America and Asia.
Our technology and cyber experts allow NATO to conduct critical operations, protect NATO’s airspace, make data-driven decisions, defend against cyber-attacks, secure NATO networks and maintain superiority in space. This is all possible because of our greatest force, our people. In order to keep this edge we aim to hire, train and retain the very best staff.
Our staff members represent both the diversity and unity of our Alliance. When you join the NCI Agency, you will be part of an organization where you can contribute authentically to the mission and purpose of NATO and help us keep our technological edge.
About the job
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, you will join the Agency as we embark on a journey to transform our IT services to support NATO’s Digital Endeavour. You will join the Chief Technology Office (CTO) within the Architecting and Engineering (A&E) team, which facilitates effective, secure and coherent NATO C3 capabilities and ICT services across projects, programmes, portfolios and the Federation of Enterprises. The A&E team supports the Chief A&E – the Agency’s single authority accountable for technical coherence across requirements, engineering, architecture, roadmaps, security engineering and system integration.
As Principal Architect, you will play a crucial role in delivering the NATO Digital Backbone and Digital Workplace (NDBB and NDW), a foundational part of NATO’s Digital Transformation. You will help drive the transition from today’s system- and network-based architecture to a modern cloud, services and data-centric security architecture – delivering capability and enterprise-level architectures, roadmaps, requirements and high-level designs through programme- and project-driven initiatives, and working within DevSecOps and Agile delivery teams focused on fast delivery of new services to NATO’s C4ISR users.
What you will do
We are looking for a Principal Architect to:
•Lead architecture coherency across NATO Digital Workplace (NDW) enterprise and solution architecting as the NDW Segment Architect, and act as the NDW Technical Design Authority.
•Lead NDW solution architecting in full coordination with service engineering and implementation teams, and develop and coordinate NDW technology and implementation roadmaps across the five NDW service pillars.
•Provide cyber security advice and guidance in collaboration with the Cyber Security Segment Architect – identifying risks in candidate solution architectures, supporting countermeasures, and supporting governance processes to accredit and secure Digital Workplace capabilities.
•Champion enterprise and solution architecture standards, emerging-technology adoption, requirements management and strategic stakeholder relationships across the organization.
This is a senior, hands-on architecture role at the centre of NATO’s Digital Workplace transformation, with real technical authority and the autonomy to drive complex, cross-cutting initiatives.
For a full list of duties, please review the job description on the NCI Agency career site.
About you
The valuable knowledge and experience that you bring to this role are:
•A Master’s degree from a nationally recognized/certified university in a related discipline, with at least 5 years of related post-graduation experience; or a Bachelor’s degree with 8 years of related experience.
•Extensive experience leading the creation and review of IT services, systems, architectures and roadmaps for large organizations.
•Extensive experience leading and monitoring the development of domain / segment and solution architectures, ensuring consistency with specified requirements.
•Extensive experience leading the implementation of ICT-specific projects for alignment with relevant architectures and roadmaps.
•Extensive experience managing strategic relationships with senior stakeholders, internal and external.
•A proven ability to deliver Digital Workplace capabilities for an industry, government or military organization, with up-to-date knowledge across the NDW service areas: end-user devices and client technologies, the Digital Workplace Foundation, user application services, unified communication and collaboration, enterprise portal and social networking, and content services.
•Knowledge of cloud and infrastructure services, network architecture and technologies, data-centric security, and identity, access and credentials management.
•Experience developing technical requirements, system diagrams and engineering products to support cyber security acquisition and procurement.
•Strong analytical and systems thinking, the ability to moderate architecture-related discussions with multi-disciplinary teams, and proven communication and briefing skills.
•A thorough knowledge of English (written and spoken) is essential; some knowledge of French is desirable.
Desirable experience and qualifications include: prior experience in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements; knowledge of NATO’s responsibilities and organization (including NATO HQ, ACO and ACT); knowledge of Federation of Services and the application of AI and data sciences; and relevant professional certifications (such as TOGAF, ArchiMate, ITIL, COBIT, CCNP, or information- and data-management certifications). Relevant training and certification will typically be provided on hire and is not essential to qualify for the post.
What we offer
•Genuinely meaningful work as part of the most successful alliance in history.
•Five-year contract with a competitive tax-free salary and household and children’s allowances.
•Privileges for expatriate staff, including expatriation and education allowances (where eligible), additional home leave, and other benefits.
•Excellent private health insurance scheme.
•Generous annual leave, offering 30 days plus official holidays.
•Pension benefits under the NATO Pension Scheme.
•Growth and development programs, including professional training and wellbeing initiatives.
To learn more about NCI Agency and our work, please visit our website.
The NCIA prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment of mutual respect and value uniqueness and differences in gender, gender identity, race, ethnic or cultural origin, age, religion, sexual orientation and physical or neurocognitive ability.
Additional details on the conditions of application can be found via the NCI Agency career site.
For information about the NATO Single Salary Scale (Grading, Allowances, etc.) please visit our website . Detailed data is available under the Salary and Benefits tab.