Freelance klantspecifiek RKITEK

We are looking for an expert Domain Architect - Corporate, AI and Market for a client.

Practical
Work location Brussels - 2 days/week on site
Full-time work regime
Period: 19-10-2026 - 31-12-2026 (extendable)

Role

Our client is looking for a high-impact IT Domain Architect for the Belgian IT Architecture team. This role specifically focuses on the Corporate, AI, Market business domain — a broad domain encompassing the corporate capabilities and supporting functions of the enterprise, along with Artificial Intelligence (a strategic technology domain focused on advancing and governing AI capabilities within the organization) and how the client interacts with the broader market.

As a Domain IT Architect, your mission is to keep the IT landscape of the domain coherent, secure, operable, and future-proof, enabling secure and reliable network operations that align with the strategy and regulatory obligations. You are not a theorist but a pragmatic bridge builder between ambitious business initiatives and robust IT realizations, at the intersection of strategy and execution.

The consultant is responsible for:

• Architectural translation & design: translating organizational capabilities with Business Architecture into usable IT roadmaps and converting complex business processes into detailed IT blueprints

• Standards & governance: defining and enforcing domain-specific principles, in line with Group and local principles, standards, and reference architectures

• Presenting, justifying, and defending architectural designs to the Architectural Review Board (ARB)

• Formalizing logic through Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) for long-term maintainability; guarding against architectural drift and uncontrolled technical debt

• Monitoring SLA/OLA performance and reporting domain risks

• Portfolio management: maintaining a single source of truth for the IT application and platform portfolio in the Enterprise Architecture Repository; regular portfolio assessments (e.g., Gartner TIME, 6R) in collaboration with Business and IT stakeholders

• Identifying opportunities for application/platform reuse to reduce technical debt and operational costs

• Collaborating with solution architects to keep solutions viable throughout build, run, evolve, and retire phases

• Strategic advice: conducting trade-off analyses (cost, risk, complexity, time to value) to support decision-making at the executive level; performing peer reviews

• Collaborating with Data Architects to govern asset and operational data models, integration patterns, and data ownership; ensuring interoperability among enterprise, control, and analytics systems

• Collaborating with security and compliance teams to anchor security, availability, and resilience requirements in the architecture and comply with regulatory, safety, and cyber obligations; defining architectural measures for business continuity and disaster recovery

Required experience and skills

• Excellent communication skills to navigate between C-suite stakeholders, operational leaders, project/product leadership, and deep tech engineering teams, and articulate complex trade-offs clearly

• Strategic mindset: designing architectures that are scalable, compliant, resilient, and operable throughout their entire lifecycle

• Natural collaborator with Business, Domain, Solution, Security, Platform, Enterprise, Information, and Data architects

• Comfortable with architectural governance: defending architectural positions, taking responsibility for domain decisions, ensuring compliance with standards without compromising delivery

• In-depth knowledge of TOGAF and ArchiMate, pragmatically applicable in a delivery context

• Hands-on experience with Domain-Driven Design (DDD), Event Storming, and Agile Architecture methodologies

• Strong background in Corporate business capabilities, processes, and supporting systems (Finance, HR, Procurement, Corporate Services), preferably with SAP product knowledge

• Knowledge and experience with AI target architectures, reference architectures, architectural patterns, AI governance (e.g., EU AI Act), and integration architecture (e.g., MCP)

• Knowledge of Energy Market facilitation services is a plus

• Awareness of IT/OT integration, operational constraints, and safety-critical systems typical of a TSO context

• Understanding of architectural implications around security, availability, regulatory compliance, and operational risk in critical infrastructure environments

• Native-level proficiency in Dutch, French, or German, and professional proficiency in English; knowledge of one or more other languages is a plus

Additional selection criteria

• Does the candidate have hands-on experience presenting and defending architectural decisions to an Architecture Review Board (ARB), resulting in approval, rejection, or redesign of a solution?

• Does the candidate have practical experience defining or governing AI architecture standards and controls to ensure compliance with regulations such as the EU AI Act within an enterprise environment?

• Can the candidate describe a specific situation in which a formal architectural trade-off analysis was conducted between at least two solution options, explaining the key criteria (e.g., cost, risk, complexity, operability) and the final recommendation?