Lead Infrastructure Architect - Data Centre & Cyber Recovery

Location:

Amsterdam, Netherlands (3 days onsite per week)

Contract:

Initial 6 months | Potential extension to 18 months

Hours:

36 hours per week
Industry:  Banking & Financial Services
Payroll Contract - No ZZPers
Lead Infrastructure Architect - Data Centre & Cyber Recovery  We are looking for an experienced  Lead Infrastructure Architect  to play a key role in a major European banking infrastructure transformation programme.
This is an opportunity to help shape the architecture of a  brand-new, third European Data Centre , purpose-built to strengthen cyber resilience, disaster recovery capabilities and operational continuity across a global financial services environment.
With an anticipated multi-million‑euro investment programme, this is a strategically important initiative that will directly influence how critical banking infrastructure is protected against cyberattacks, large-scale outages and operational disruptions.
You will join an established global Infrastructure, Resilience & Recovery function, working closely with senior technology leadership, enterprise architects, security specialists and engineering teams.
Unlike traditional architecture positions focused on maintaining existing systems,  this role offers the opportunity to design a new cyber-resilient environment from the ground up , influencing key technology decisions from initial business requirements and feasibility assessments through to concept design and future implementation.
What You'll Be Doing  Data Centre Architecture & Design   Lead the development of the High-Level Concept Design for a new European Cyber Recovery Data Centre.
Design secure, scalable and highly resilient enterprise infrastructure architectures supporting mission-critical banking services.
Develop architecture solutions covering data centre infrastructure, compute, storage, networking, virtualisation, backup and recovery.
Design cyber recovery environments incorporating immutable backups, isolated recovery vaults, air‑gapped infrastructure and clean‑room recovery capabilities.
Define resilient infrastructure patterns involving replication, failover, cross‑region recovery and hybrid environments.
Ensure architecture decisions align with global technology strategy, security policies and enterprise architecture standards.
Strategic Infrastructure Transformation   Translate complex business needs into clear functional and non‑functional technical requirements.
Develop a comprehensive Business & Technical Requirements Matrix.
Contribute to the business case, feasibility assessments and long‑term data centre strategy.
Support data centre site assessments, technical evaluations and infrastructure planning across Europe.
Assess technology solutions, architectural trade‑offs, infrastructure dependencies and operational risks.
Help establish the foundations for subsequent design, proof‑of‑concept and implementation phases.
Cyber Resilience & Disaster Recovery   Design infrastructure that can withstand and recover from major cyber incidents, ransomware attacks and critical technology failures.
Incorporate cyber resilience and disaster recovery principles into the overall data centre architecture.
Apply regulatory and industry requirements, including DORA, NIS2, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 22237 and NIST frameworks.
Work with Information Security, Risk Management and IT Resilience teams to establish robust recovery architectures.
Ensure proposed solutions support business continuity, recovery objectives, security and regulatory compliance.
Technical Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement   Collaborate with enterprise architects, infrastructure engineering teams, cybersecurity specialists and senior IT leadership.
Provide architectural direction to multidisciplinary engineering teams…