Technical Lead, IT​/Tech

Would you like to help shape the technical development of a platform that is used every day to deliver digital products and services to end users? Are you interested in bringing architecture, software development, and product development together? And do you thrive in an environment where existing technology is evolved into more generic, reusable, and scalable solutions? If so, we’re looking for you.

SURF is the ICT cooperative for Dutch educational and research institutions. Together with them, we work on digital services and complex innovation challenges to enhance the quality of education and research.

Working at SURF means working for a unique and open organization. This is evident in everything: the structure of the organization, the setup of the project teams, the culture in our offices, and the atmosphere among colleagues. SURF offers excellent terms of employment and a flexible approach to work/life balance. Employees enjoy working independently. In addition, everyone is given the space and freedom to use and develop their talents as effectively and broadly as possible.

You’ll be working in the Procurement & Delivery department, as part of the SURFspot team.

Within the SURFspot team, we ensure that digital products and services are made available to students, staff, and other end users. The team is responsible for both the day-to-day operations and the ongoing development of the platform, its integrations, and the related services.

SURFspot is rapidly evolving. While the platform was traditionally used primarily as a web store, we are increasingly developing generic capabilities in areas such as product and catalog data, rights, pricing, target audiences, integrations, delivery, and support.

In doing so, we’re not only looking at what SURFspot needs today, but also at how existing technology and functionality can be deployed more broadly and reused. You’ll work closely with the Senior Product Manager, Engineers, Operations, Vendors, Architects, and other teams within SURF.

The coming period will be focused on further technical professionalization and transformation. That is why we are looking for a Technical Lead / Architect who can provide direction for technical development while remaining closely involved in its implementation.

As Technical Lead / Architect, you are responsible for the technical direction, architecture, and technical quality of the platform and the associated services.
Together with the Senior Product Manager, you translate product goals and the roadmap into technically feasible, secure, manageable, and reusable solutions.

Your responsibilities include:

• Designing, documenting, and monitoring the target architecture;
  translating product goals and capabilities into technically feasible solutions;
• Working with the Senior Product Manager to determine which functionality will be implemented within Magento, outside of Magento, or in a hybrid architecture;
• Ensuring that new business logic is developed in the correct place within the architecture;
• Establishing and monitoring architectural principles and technical standards for APIs, integrations, data, security, logging, monitoring, error handling, and management;
• Ensuring that new solutions are developed to be generic and reusable wherever possible;
• Preventing the creation of unnecessary technical silos and dependencies;
• Assessing the technical feasibility, risks, and dependencies of roadmap items;
• Conducting architecture, solution, and code reviews;
• Monitoring the technical quality and production readiness of releases;
• Actively contributing to complex or strategic technical capabilities;
• Organizing technical documentation and knowledge transfer.

An important part of your role…