Job Title
Executive Level 2
Locations
* Canberra, ACT
* Adelaide, SA
* Sydney, NSW
* Melbourne, VIC
* Brisbane, QLD
Salary
$152,362 - $182,891
About The Department Of Employment And Workplace Relations
We are committed to empowering futures, ensuring rights and enriching lives. We support people to have safe, secure and well-paid work with the skills for a sustainable future as we ourselves strive to be a model employer.
We provide the framework for fair and productive relationships between employers and employees. We also oversee skills development and training initiatives to support those entering the workforce or re‑training to take advantage of emerging employment opportunities.
With us, your work directly contributes to shaping the employment landscape. Whether you are engaging in policy development, program implementation, or direct support services, your efforts will have a tangible impact on job seekers, employees and the economy by giving them a framework to build a future anchored and realised through employment.
It is our ambition to do things differently, to create the department of great jobs – where our people reflect our purpose.
The Role
Reporting to the Assistant Secretary, the EL2 ICT Technical Director (Solution Architecture) provides senior architecture leadership across multiple delivery streams, operating with a high degree of independence and shaping the future direction of the Division. You will design the next generation of Employment, Skills, Workplace Relations, and Education services, putting customers at the centre, challenging conventional thinking and using architecture to solve complex policy and delivery challenges to achieve better outcomes for the Australian community.
In this role, you will collaborate closely with EL2 leaders, platform SMEs (e.g. cloud, identity, integration, data) and multidisciplinary delivery teams to design, assure and optimise DEWR’s digital solutions and platforms and inform technology investment plans. You will work within fast paced agile teams alongside Lead Delivery Managers, product owners, service designers, system and business analysts, engineers and security specialists to navigate complex technical challenges, resolve architectural decisions, uplift architecture governance and secure by design practices, and support delivery of modern, scalable, user centred systems.
You will provide expert architectural guidance, coaching and mentoring to architects and engineers, building capability in solution architecture practices.
Working independently under broad direction, you will be responsible for achieving agreed objectives and ensuring risks, issues, and dependencies are proactively managed.
Engage directly with senior executives and key stakeholders to influence organisational direction and provide clear, evidence based architecture advice.
This is an opportunity to play a significant role in delivering contemporary digital and policy outcomes for the Government. You will contribute to the design and delivery of major national programs, helping to shape systems and services that support Australians’ access to employment, skills and training.
Duties and Responsibilities
* Own end to end solution architecture for major initiatives, define current/state and target state architectures, conduct options analysis and trade‑off decisions, and specify non‑functional requirements (e.g. security, privacy, performance, availability, resilience, operability, and cost).
* Develop and govern architecture patterns, guardrails, and standards, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, whole of government direction and platform roadmaps, maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and ensure traceability.
* Lead and assure solution design across multiple teams, chair and participate in architecture and design reviews, resolve integration and interoperability challenges, ensure adherence to approved patterns and controls.
* Design for integration and data, including API‑led and event‑driven architectures, interface specifications, data contracts, lineage and authoritative sources, ensuring reuse, cohesion and maintainability.
* Influence investment and delivery decisions by providing clear, evidence based architectural advice for business cases, delivery plans and governance forums, articulate risks, assumptions, costs and benefits.
* Produce high quality architecture artefacts, such as solution overviews, high‑level designs (HLDs), logical/physical architecture models, sequence diagrams, integration views, data models and migration approaches.
* Champion secure by design, privacy by design, accessibility and reliability through architecture, collaborating with security, risk, service design and delivery stakeholders to embed controls and user needs.
* Manage architecture RAID (risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies) at portfolio level, addressing technical debt, complexity and obsolescence, and plan pragmatic pathways to target state.
* Operate effectively in high pressure, time‑critical environments, balancing competing priorities, tight deadlines and emerging issues while maintaining quality and governance standards.
* Exercise a high level of integrity, discretion and probity when working with sensitive, pre‑decision or politically sensitive matters, ensuring confidentiality and appropriate escalation of risks.
* Build strong relationships with business areas, delivery partners and vendors to enable coherent, scalable, and sustainable solutions.
Qualifications and Education
* 5+ years’ experience delivering large‑scale ICT initiatives, providing technical leadership across complex, multi‑team environments.
* Demonstrated ability to develop and apply architecture strategies, patterns, and standards, and provide clear, influential advice to senior stakeholders on complex risk and governance matters.
Eligibility
Citizenship – to be eligible for employment with the Department, you must be an Australian Citizen or, in limited circumstances, in the process of obtaining it.
Security Clearance – required to hold or have the ability to obtain and maintain a Baseline security clearance.
Diversity Statement
At DEWR we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and seek to recruit staff with a wide range of backgrounds, skill levels, disciplines and working styles. If this role resonates with you and you are excited about making an impact, we encourage you to apply.
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