Senior Technical Architect - Africa

JOB DESCRIPTION: SENIOR TECHNICAL ARCHITECT

Job Details

Item

Detail

Position Title

Senior Technical Architect (Services & Pre-Sales)

Department

Services

Primary Location

Johannesburg, South Africa

Employment Type

Permanent

Reporting Line

Services & Delivery, with dual alignment to Go-To-Market / Pre-Sales

1. Role Purpose

The Senior Technical Architect is a hybrid, client-facing and delivery-focused role that serves as the highest technical authority across the full account lifecycle. The role bridges pre-sales solutioning and services delivery, and is responsible for driving pre-sales discovery and bid defences, architecting scalable enterprise ServiceNow solutions, acting as a strategic advisor to C-suite client stakeholders, and maintaining end-to-end architectural integrity and governance across active delivery engagements. The incumbent is both a client-facing strategist and a hands-on technical practitioner who ensures that every commercial commitment is underpinned by a robust, maintainable implementation.

2. Position in Organisational Structure

• Reporting Line: Reports into Services & Delivery, with dual alignment to Go-To-Market / Pre-Sales for pursuit velocity and solutioning, and to Services & Delivery for technical governance and margin integrity.
• Role Level: Highest technical authority across assigned accounts and delivery programmes.
• Oversight: Provides technical guidance and oversight to Technical Architects, Senior Technical Consultants, and delivery teams.

3. Key Responsibilities

A. Pre-Sales Solutioning, Bid Strategy & Commercial Defence

• Opportunity Discovery & Solutioning: Partner closely with Go-To-Market teams to lead technical discovery, translate complex customer requirements into scalable ServiceNow architectures, and define implementation approaches.
• Proposal & SOW Ownership: Author, structure, and own technical proposals, Statements of Work (SOWs), effort estimations, and sizing models for key enterprise deals, ensuring accuracy, feasibility, and margin protection.
• Technical Defences & Demonstrations: Deliver high-impact, value-focused functional demonstrations and lead technical defences during client orals and RFP evaluation rounds to convert pursuits into wins.
• Pre-Sales Demand Management: Support the allocation and tracking of incoming opportunities on the pre-sales demand board, shaping win themes and competitive differentiators.

B. Strategic Account Advisory & Value Realisation

• Trusted Technical Advisor: Serve as the primary strategic technical liaison for key enterprise accounts, bridging business strategy and technology execution.
• Roadmapping & Value Frameworks: Co-create multi-year platform evolution roadmaps with client C-suite executives, ensuring platform adoption, automation maturity, and alignment with business outcomes.
• Account Growth & Governance: Conduct Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) and platform health checks; identify expansion opportunities across AI, AIOps, and digital workflows to position ServiceNow as an enterprise integration layer.

C. Architectural Governance & Design Authority

• Design Authority: Define and govern end-to-end solution architectures across engagements, validating design decisions made by project-level Technical Architects.
• Standards & Guardrails: Establish architectural patterns for scalability, performance, security, and long-term maintainability, reducing technical debt across programmes.
• Integration & Platform Strategy: Design secure, canonical integration patterns between ServiceNow, observability tools, and broader enterprise IT landscapes (ITOM, ITSM, CSM, custom applications).

D. Delivery Handover, Prototyping & IP Development

• Initial Engagement Leadership: Lead solutioning during initial customer discovery workshops and execute a seamless handover to technical delivery teams.
• Rapid Prototyping & Sandbox Demonstrations: Architect, configure, and prototype ServiceNow modules, maintaining technical agility to quickly get new capabilities or AI features demonstration-ready.
• Reusable IP & Accelerators: Build and contribute reusable design patterns, demonstration assets, and automation frameworks to Quintica's accelerator library to accelerate pre-sales cycles and improve delivery margins.

E. Capability Leadership & Quality Assurance

• Mentorship: Guide, mentor, and uplift the technical maturity of Technical Architects, Senior Consultants, and developers within the practice.
• Technical Quality Oversight: Validate that build and testing practices demonstrate direct alignment to business outcomes and adhere to approved architectural patterns.

4. Qualifications & Experience

Education & Certifications

• Education: Bachelor's Degree or Diploma in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent.
• Core ServiceNow Certifications (Mandatory): ServiceNow Certified System Administrator (CSA); ServiceNow Certified Application Developer (CAD); Certified Implementation Specialist (CIS) in at least three core domains (ITSM baseline essential; ITOM, CSM, or Risk/Security preferred).
• Advanced / Preferred Certifications: ServiceNow Certified Technical Architect (CTA) or Certified Master Architect (CMA) — highly desirable; ITIL v4 Foundation; exposure to Enterprise Architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF) or Cloud/AI certifications.

Experience

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in the ServiceNow ecosystem, with a proven track record spanning pre-sales solutioning, enterprise architecture, and strategic account leadership.
• Demonstrated capability leading complex project delivery as a Lead/Senior Architect while simultaneously supporting enterprise pre-sales pursuits, drafting SOWs, and defending technical solutions to client stakeholders.
• Deep knowledge of ITOM, ITSM, CSM, and cross-platform enterprise integrations. Experience in Telecommunications, Financial Services, or Public Sector domains is advantageous.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 50% across the MEA region.

Skills & Competencies

• C-Suite Communication & Storytelling: Exceptional presentation, objection-handling, and narrative skills to articulate technical value to C-level executives.
• Commercial Acumen: Strong ability to estimate effort, design team structures, calculate scoping models, and structure winning RFP responses.
• Technical Agility: Hands-on ability to build live proofs of concept, explore emerging platform capabilities (such as GenAI / Now Assist), and translate requirements into functional prototypes.

5. Performance Scorecard (KPI Framework)

Category

Weight

Target Metric

Pre-Sales Conversion & Velocity

30%

Technical win-rate on proposals/RFPs; accuracy of effort estimations; delivery handover quality.

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