Solution Architect

What exactly do we do at Royal FloraHolland?

Coöperatie Royal FloraHolland is the beating heart of the (inter)national floriculture sector. With a turnover of €5.7 billion in 2021 – which we facilitated for our growers – this represents the third-largest economy in the Netherlands. And we are proud of that!

Our ambition is to develop into the international marketplace for flowers and plants. We invest in our physical and digital marketplace, our logistics and financial services, to serve our growers and other customers as effectively as possible. In addition, we make significant investments in our people, focusing on development, training, and sustainable employability so that together we can go the extra mile every day, prove our added value to growers and customers, and realize our ambitions.

What role does IT play at Royal FloraHolland?

The Business Technology Organization (BTO) department is responsible for all ICT and digital processes and products delivered to and by Royal FloraHolland. We work closely with (external) partners to provide services as effectively as possible, following a governance model. The goal of BTO is to manage and oversee the IT partner ecosystems and operational IT services. Last but not least, we are the driving force behind the development of digital and data capabilities within the company and across the sector.

 Solution Architect for Real Estate & Facilities Management (RE&FM) Digital (IT) doma

The Solution Architect RE&FM supports and works with the responsible Product Owner RE&FM and the Information Consultant RE&FM to proactively, practically and holistically guide the development and management of a portfolio of projects, products, systems (including applications, technologies, processes and information), shared infrastructure services and shared application services in a SaaS/Cloud-first environment.

The Solution Architect RE&FM is responsible for the IT/technical aspects of domain development and applications management activities, including coordination, communication (also with other IT domains and disciplines), research, analysis and design tasks supporting the development of technology solutions to ensure that solutions meet business needs and align with architectural governance and standards.

The Solution Architect RE&FM actively collaborates in domain projects and development together with the Product Owner RE&FM (responsible for overall domain coordination), the Information Consultant RE&FM (responsible for functional analysis and coordination within the domain), other IT domains, internal/external suppliers and the Business.

Focus on properly designed and engineered solutions

• Communicates domain architecture and design to all stakeholders
• Collaborates with colleagues and suppliers to design, implement and further develop technical solutions in a SaaS/Cloud-first environment
• Is responsible for collaboration with other IT domains and suppliers for (among other things) technical connectivity and communication
• Investigates and understands the existing application portfolio, including the need for changes and improvements
• Ensures that software implementation is compliant with system design, makes design decisions, administers exceptions (technical debt) and manages clean-up of exceptions
• Guards Lifecycle Management & Application Health of systems and manages technical debt
• Defines architecture improvements by learning from outages and incidents

Role-specific skills

• Documenting architecture in a structured way; basic modeling architecture in Archimate, C4, UML modelling
• Consultancy skills to advice and influence stakeholders
• Expert knowledge of software design and integration patterns and their implementation
• Knowledge of software development methodologies, tools and best practises
• Knowledge of infrastructure (e.g. cloud) services
• Integration of SaaS/cloud services into existing infrastructure and Identity/Access Management

General skills & qualities

• Good oral and written communication in Dutch and English
• Flexible communication style; from listening to steering, but always with respect for the relationship
• Longer term and quality focused to counterbalance of shorter-term focused stakeholders
• Offers practical, not just theoretical, support to colleagues

What we offer

• A challenging and responsible role in one of the most important strategic areas within a transforming organization;
• The opportunity to further develop your expertise and contribute to the success of the world’s largest international floriculture marketplace;
• 27 vacation days per year based on a full-time contract;
• An attractive salary according to the collective labor agreement (CAO): €4,771 – €6,769 gross per month (based on a 38-hour workweek), depending on experience;
• A team of enthusiastic and driven colleagues who are all experts in their field.

Are you the Solution Architect we’re looking for? Apply now!

Grow with us

We connect growers and buyers to grow together. Will you help contribute to the success of Royal FloraHolland? Apply online today—we’ll get back to you with feedback on your application as soon as possible.

Do you have specific questions about the Solution Architect role that are not answered in the job description? Please contact Karen van Lohuizen at karenvanlohuizen@royalfloraholland.com.

Please note: This vacancy is open to both internal and external candidates; in case of equal qualifications, internal candidates will be given priority.