Key Skills

Job Description

Application deadline: 20 November 2026 Headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, Europol offers a purpose driven career, as every role offers a profound sense of accomplishment, through making a positive contribution to society. Europol’s mission is to support its Member States in preventing and combating all forms of serious international and organized crime, cybercrime and terrorism. We are committed to upholding the values of service, integrity, accountability, initiative, partnership, and diversity. As part of Europol, you will collaborate with diverse top-tier experts, forge international connections, be involved in the ongoing evolution of strategies, technologies, tools and methodologies that underpin European Security, and thrive in a supportive environment that nurtures both personal and professional growth. Currently Europol is looking for Senior Specialist – ICT Solutions Architect.The successful candidate will work in a team of enterprise and solution architects, each one predominantly focused in the specific architecture domain area for which they are most competent, but all closely cooperating as a team, coordinated by a Senior Specialist. She/he will cooperate closely with software and infrastructure engineering and ICT Operations teams, providing hands-on architecture guidance and contributing to solution engineering as well as product management across the full set of business domains. The successful candidate will translate business requirements into solutions architecture and designs, producing baseline and target solution architecture documentation, and ensure their respective roadmaps are aligned with the business strategy on one side and with the overall ICT evolution on the other side. She/he will be entrusted with the following functions and duties: Liaising with key stakeholders to support planning and execution of ICT changes and development initiatives; Assuming quality assurance roles in ICT development projects; As needed, acting as Product Manager for selected systems, platforms, or product lines, taking technical responsibility for the product throughout its life cycle and ensuring cross-product consistency and synergy; Monitoring and/or participating to selected EU, law enforcement, or other relevant fora, and sponsor internal adoption of interfaces and standards supporting the delivery and support of decentralised solutions; Producing, maintaining, updating, disseminating and expanding the portfolio of architecture standards, guidelines and reference architectures covering the full range of ICT solutions, including decentralised architectures, cloud computing and AI-enabled solutions. Defining and promoting sound application and integration architectures, underpinned by robust data architecture, data modelling, master data management and data governance principles, to ensure consistency, interoperability, scalability and alignment with organisational needs. Identifying and specifying ICT architecture components required to support modern technology solutions (including cloud, decentralized frameworks, and AI capabilities),, providing guidance and review for their implementation and configuration; Devising capability and solution architecture blueprints (including roadmaps) in support of strategic as well as change initiative objectives; Supporting and advising in solution engineering and operations activities, in cooperation with software and infrastructure engineering and ICT operations teams; Driving the evaluation and selection of the technical products to support the implementation of the full range of ICT solutions, including decentralised architectures, cloud computing and AI-enabled solutions; Assessing business cases, project proposals, and project deliverables, to determine feasibility, impact on, and compliance with, the overall ICT architecture and landscape; Key requirements and knowledge: A level of education as described in the vacancy notice published on Europol’s website; Experience in architecture definition, specification, change management and providing architecture supervision and support to ICT delivery projects; Experience in designing applications for large scale deployments across a number of functional domains based on a combination of custom-built (mainly JEE, .Net and Python) or Commercial of the Shelf (COTS) products; Experience with devising designs to integrate custom-built and COTS based systems; Experience in incorporating the requirements of ICT operability and security into application and integration designs; Experience with multi-product portfolio mapping, product roadmap alignment techniques, and cross-product capability management frameworks; Experience in the following domain areas: o Data integration, acquisition, processing and reporting/visualization architectures and standards; o Architecting and integrating AI and Machine Learning (AI/ML) capabilities—such as Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases, and automated analytical pipelines—into enterprise software solutions, including MLOps and AI security guardrails; o Microservices and event-driven architectures and standards (ex. containerized Kubernetes deployments and transactional integrity for microservices applications); o Search system architectures and standards (ex. Elasticsearch, Opensearch and similar); o Cloud application and services design/integration, including hybrid cloud/on-premises deployments; o Privacy and Data Protection by design solutions. Sound knowledge of the concepts, methods, techniques, and representative products in the following domain areas: o Microservices patterns and anti-patterns (i.e. Service Mesh, Distributed Tracing, Circuit Breaker, etc.) o Event-driven and Complex event processing architecture patterns and anti-patterns; o Cloud application components and services architectures, design patterns/anti-patterns; o Sound knowledge of concepts, methods, patterns, and representative technologies for AI/ML application integration (including LLMs, RAG, vector storage, MLOps), as well as AI governance, ethical AI, and risk assessment frameworks; o Privacy by design techniques; o Enterprise search architecture patterns and anti-patterns, tackling cross system/network search needs including the document model definition and evolution; o Information architectures and standards, meta-data management, master data management, data modelling and design, data quality management; o Data integration solutions, ETL and streaming data solutions, including data modelling and designs for that purpose across management; Knowledge of Architecture Modelling techniques: conceptualisation, modelling, and visualisation of architecture models and designs; Knowledge of multi-product portfolio mapping, product roadmap alignment techniques, and cross-product capability management frameworks; Indicative salary: The basic monthly salary is EUR 8,911.48 (step 1) or EUR 9,285.95 (step 2). The indicative net salary of AD8 step 1 for a staff member (single) in receipt of expatriation allowance (16%) is: a) Staff member (single) in receipt of expatriation allowance (16%): EUR 9,026.62 b) Staff member with two dependent children in their custody in receipt of expatriation allowance (16%): EUR 11,423.76 Compensation and benefits: Healthy work-life balance and working environment: flexible working hours, structural teleworking opportunities (depending on the nature of your job), comprehensive annual leave, and maternity/parental leave In line with the EU civil service rules; Employees are protected against illness, accidents, and the risk of occupational disease by the Sickness Insurance Scheme (JSIS), which offers global insurance coverage; Staff pay EU tax at source, but salaries are exempt from national taxes; A competitive salary and benefits package (which can include expatriation, household, foreign residence and education allowances) in line with the EU civil service rules (Click here to explore our supplementary allowances; Europol fosters a continuous learning culture. We offer a comprehensive learning and development programme that is aligned with the overall business strategy and that values people’s performance and development; Social benefits in the form of unemployment allowance under certain conditions, as well as pension rights for Temporary and Contract Agents after 10 years of service; Possibility to advance in grade/salary through annual appraisal exercise and opportunities for lateral development within the organisation; A workplace that values environmental sustainability, diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities; Apply now and create a safer Europe with us! Please refer to the job posting on our website here for details regarding the eligibility and selection criteria and duties. The only way to submit an application is via the Europol website. Click here to visit Europol website and learn more about the Agency and its mission.

Core Responsibilities

Translate business requirements into solution architectures, designs, documentation, and roadmaps aligned with business strategy and ICT evolution. Guide and assure ICT delivery, manage selected products across their life cycles, develop architecture standards, and advise on technology selection and implementation.

Requirements

Requires relevant education as specified in Europol’s vacancy notice and substantial experience defining and supervising architecture for large-scale ICT delivery, application integration, and product portfolios. Candidates should have expertise across data, AI/ML, microservices, event-driven systems, search, cloud, security, privacy, and architecture modelling.

Benefits

• Flexible Working Hours
• Teleworking Opportunities
• Annual Leave
• Maternity and Parental Leave
• Sickness and Accident Insurance
• Tax-Exempt Salary from National Taxes
• Expatriation, Household, Foreign Residence, and Education Allowances
• Learning and Development Programme
• Unemployment Allowance
• Pension Rights
• Opportunities for Grade and Salary Advancement
• Lateral Development Opportunities