Job vacancy: Senior technology architect, New York

The editorial team of eFinancialCareers.com analyses a current job vacancy that looks significant, intriguing or otherwise of interest:

Investment banks are still recovering from the surge in IT spending that accompanied the internet boom, Y2K and the general gung-ho mentality of the late 1990s. Spending increases now tend to be confined to just a few sectors, such as credit derivatives and foreign exchange.

This is giving banks time to pause for thought about their overall IT strategy. Many are finding that the result of ripping out so many systems and replacing them with new ones - often at breakneck speed - is that their strategy lacks coherence and is in serious need of some long-term planning.

A large investment bank in New York is currently looking for someone to apply exactly that kind of vision, through an advert by the London-based search frm Astbury Marsden. The bank wants a senior technology architect 'to define and implement global strategy for infrastructure' - salary to $200,000.

Jonathan Nicholson, a consultant at Astbury Marsden, says the bonus for such

a role could easily take total compensation to $500,000, even in these straitened

times. The successful candidate will combine extensive technical knowledge at delivery

level about servers and web development with commercial experience in dealing with

vendors and contracts.

They will also have to be persuasive enough to win over sceptics. IT teams

that may be accustomed to working on their own will have to be convinced of the right

way forward. So will senior management. 'IT has a reputation for overspending and

then not delivering,' said Nicholson. 'Credibility is important.'

The job will involve making fragmented systems scaleable and unifying regional

architecture. 'A trading platform that works in New York will not necessarily

work in Tokyo. That might have to change,' says Nicholson.

Experience at an investment bank is not a requirement. The successful candidate might come from a consulting background or a software house with enterprise products, according to the ad.

'It's about thinking globally in a five-year time frame, not designing a straight through processing system in five months,' says Nicholson. 'You don't have to have worked for a bank to have the right skills. '

The ad had produced about 30 responses so far from credible applicants. Nicholson also had bad news for anyone who thinks redundancy these days carries no stigma.

'This employer wants someone who is playing a key role somewhere at the moment.

They don't want someone who is surplus to requirements somewhere else.'

Job Vacancy looks at advertisements from both eFinancialCareers.com and other sources