Senior Specialist – ICT Solutions Architect, ICT Strategy & Execution Coordination Unit (AD8)

  • Reference numberEuropol/2026/TA/AD8/785
  • Deadline:20 Nov 2026, 23:59 CET

  • Department:C1 ICT

  • TypeNon-Restricted

  • Contract type:Non-Restricted Temporary Agent

  • Publish date19 Oct 2026

  • Update date:20 Oct 2026

This vacancy is being advertised simultaneously internally and externally. Please note that if the post is filled internally, no appointment will be made from the external publication. Instead, the external selection process may be used to establish a reserve list of qualified candidates who may be considered for the same or similar opportunities in the future.

1. Organisation context

Organisational setting:

The post of Senior Specialist – ICT Solutions Architect is located in the ICT Architecture Team, ICT Strategy & Execution Coordination Unit, ICT Department, Capabilities Directorate.

The ICT Department has the responsibility for devising, delivering and operating critical technology capabilities and solutions supporting the core mission and support processes of Europol. Over 150 internal staff members and a significant number of domain-specific consultants are responsible for devising, developing, delivering and operating information management and communication technology capabilities that ensure enhanced criminal information analysis and exchange among Europol, Member States and third parties.

The ICT Strategy & Execution Coordination Unit is responsible for maintaining/updating the ICT strategic direction and operating model, for the overarching planning coordination and implementation of the project portfolio, governing the ICT landscape and for progressing data science and AI activities. The Unit comprises of teams responsible for: ICT Project Execution & Coordination, ICT Architecture and Data Science & AI. Other activities performed by the Unit include budget forecasting and financial implementation, contract management, procurement coordination in the ICT suppliers’ space and corporate reporting.

Purpose of the post:

The incumbent works 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.

The incumbent 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.

S/he 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.

Reporting lines:

The incumbent reports to the Senior Specialist - Head of Team – ICT Architecture.

2. Functions and duties

The successful candidate will have to carry out the following main duties:

  • Liaise with key stakeholders to support planning and execution of ICT changes and development initiatives;
  • Assume quality assurance roles in ICT development projects;
  • As needed, act 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;
  • Monitor and/or participate 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;
  • Produce, maintain, update, disseminate and expand 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.
  • Define and promote 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.
  • Identify and specify 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;
  • Devise capability and solution architecture blueprints (including roadmaps) in support of strategic as well as change initiative objectives;
  • Support and advise in solution engineering and operations activities, in cooperation with software and infrastructure engineering and ICT operations teams;
  • Drive 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;
  • Assesses business cases, project proposals, and project deliverables, to determine feasibility, impact on, and compliance with, the overall ICT architecture and landscape;
  • Any other tasks as assigned by the line management.

3. Requirements - Eligibility criteria

a. Candidates must

  • Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union and enjoy full rights as a citizen;
  • Have fulfilled any obligations imposed by the applicable laws on military service;
  • Produce appropriate character references as to his or her suitability for the performance of the duties;
  • Be physically fit to perform the duties pertaining to the post as further specified in Article 13 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (CEOS);
  • Produce evidence of a thorough knowledge of one of the languages of the Union and a satisfactory knowledge of another language of the Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the duties.

b. Candidates must have

  • A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma when the normal period of university education is four years or more;

OR

  • A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma and appropriate professional experience of at least one year when the normal period of university education is at least three years;

OR

  • Professional training of an equivalent level in a relevant area and after having completed the training, at least the number of years of relevant professional experience as indicated below:

Duration of professional training Additional professional experience required for equivalency

More than 6 months and up to 1 year 4 years

More than 1 year and up to 2 years 3 years

More than 2 years and up to 3 years 2 years

More than 3 years 1 year

  • In addition to the above at least 9 years of professional work experience gained after the award of the diploma.

4. Requirements - Selection criteria

Essential:

  • 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.

b.    Professional knowledge

Essential:

  • 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;

c.    General competencies

Essential:

Communicating:

  • Excellent communication skills in English, both orally and in writing.
  • Excellent presentation skills.
  • Ability to draft clear and concise documents on complex matters for various audiences.

Analysing & problem solving:

  • Structured approach to work aimed at getting results.
  • Excellent analytical and critical thinking skills.
  • Competent user of Microsoft Office applications (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and the internet.

Delivering quality and results:

  • High degree of commitment and flexibility.
  • High level of customer and service-orientation.

Prioritising and organising:

  • Excellent organizational skills including the ability to plan own work load, establish clear priorities and exercise initiative.
  • Ability to manage projects and familiarity with project management terminology and methodology.

Resilience:

  • Strong ability to work well both independently and in a team.
  • Very good interpersonal skills, including the ability to effectively liaise with other departments, groups and teams as well as with external partners.
  • Ability to remain effective under a heavy workload and demonstrate resistance to stress.

Living diversity:

  • Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with co-workers in an international and multi-disciplinary work environment.

Advising:

  • Ability to synthesise various data into a coherent and relevant whole, transforming it into a valuable and correct conclusion.
  • Building constructive relationships with clients, adequately identifying and managing their needs and expectations, and giving well-grounded advice.

d.    Additional conditions:

Fulfil the condition stipulated in Article 5 of the Decision of the Executive Director on the Duration of contracts of employment for Temporary Agents, on the start date of the possible contract of employment which may be offered.

5. Selection procedure

All applications for Temporary Agent posts must be submitted through the online recruitment system accessible via Europol's website. For further information, please consult the Europol Recruitment Guidelines.

The Authority Authorised to Conclude Contracts of Employment (AACC) sets up a Selection Committee, composed of at least three members, consisting of one chair and at least one member from the administration and one member designated by the Staff Committee.

The selection criteria, set out in this Vacancy Notice, will be assessed by the Selection Committee throughout the different stages of the selection procedure. Before the start of the selection procedure, the Selection Committee will decide which selection criteria will be used at each stage of the selection procedure. Certain selection criteria will be assessed only for shortlisted candidates during a written test and/or a competency-based interview.

The Selection Committee will assess the applications received in order to make an initial selection of those candidates meeting all eligibility criteria and matching best the selection criteria (suitability).

The minimum pass-mark for being shortlisted, i.e. invited to participate in a post-related selection procedure, consisting of a written test and a competency-based interview, is established as 60% of the total maximum score.

The Selection Committee will shortlist the 8 highest scoring candidates. All candidates having a score equal to the 8th highest scoring candidate will be invited to take part in the selection procedure. At shortlisting stage, the Selection Committee will establish the pass-mark for the selection procedure.

It is intended for the selection procedure to be conducted remotely. Should the Selection Committee consider it necessary to conduct the selection procedure on-site at Europol, either in part or in full, in the interest of the proceedings, and subject to budget availability, the candidates invited to participate in the selection procedure will be informed accordingly.

After the selection procedure has taken place, the Selection Committee will establish a list of successful candidates, i.e. those scoring above the pre-defined pass-mark, which is shared with the AACC. Should the internal selection procedure referenced above be unsuccessful, the Selection Committee makes a proposal to the AACC on the candidate to appoint. Following that proposal, the AACC makes a decision of appointment.

Should the post be filled through the internal selection procedure, no appointment proposal will be made.

Candidates who participated in the interview will be informed of the outcome, i.e. whether they have been successful or not. In view of the list of successful candidates established by the Selection Committee, the AACC retains the discretion to constitute a Reserve List. A Reserve List is valid for 24 months.

The Selection Committee’s work and deliberations are confidential. It is forbidden for candidates to make direct or indirect contact with the members of the Selection Committee or for anyone to do so on their behalf.

All enquiries related to a selection procedure should be addressed to the Europol HR Operational Support Team at the following email address: C2-12@europol.europa.eu. Detailed information on the selection procedure- including enquiries, measures of redress and their applicable deadlines is available in the Europol Recruitment Guidelines, which can be found on Europol’s website.

6. Compensation and benefits

Scale: AD8

The gross basic monthly salary is EUR 8,911.48 (step 1) or EUR 9,285.95 (step 2).

The step in grade is determined on the basis of professional experience gained after the education required for the post and in line with applicable implementing rules.

Staff pay EU tax at source but salaries are exempt from national taxes. Compulsory deductions are made for health insurance, pension and unemployment insurance.

Subject to the applicable conditions being met, as defined in the EU Staff Regulations (EUSR)/CEOS and further specified in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, allowances such as expatriation allowance (16% of basic gross salary) or foreign residence allowance (4% of basic gross salary), household allowance, dependent child and / or education allowance may be granted.

Staff enjoy worldwide insurance coverage by the Joint Sickness Insurance Scheme (JSIS) and are insured against sickness, the risk of occupational disease and accident.

Europol offers flexible working arrangements, a comprehensive provision for annual leave as well as parental leave supporting a healthy work-life balance.

Indicative net salary sample calculation AD8/1:

a)    Staff member (single) in receipt of expatriation allowance (16%): EUR 9026.62

b)    Staff member with two dependent children in their custody in receipt of expatriation allowance (16%): EUR 11423.76

The above information is indicative and for information purposes only. It is merely meant to give an indication of the possible net salary in light of the currently applicable amounts of the related allowances and the level of taxation. It has no legal value and no rights can be derived from it.

The information is based on figures applicable as of December 2025.

7. Terms and conditions

Contract of employment

The successful candidate will be engaged in the type of post Administrator and function group AD, grade 8 pursuant to Article 2(f) CEOS and Annex I to the EUSR.

The initial contract will be concluded for a period of 4 years (full-time – 40 hours a week). The contract may be renewed, in principle, for a period of 2 years. Any further renewal shall be for an indefinite duration.

If the successful candidate is already a member of temporary staff 2(f) in the relevant function group, he/she may be offered the opportunity of contract continuity, should the relevant conditions be fulfilled.

Conditions of engagement

Before the employment contract is concluded by Europol, the successful candidate will have to:

•    declare any conflict of interest;

•    undergo a pre-employment medical examination to confirm that he/she is physically fit to perform the duties pertaining to the post or, alternatively, receive the confirmation from Europol that he/she fulfils the conditions laid down in the Decision of the Deputy Executive Director of the Capabilities Directorate on the pre-employment medical examination available on www.europol.europa.eu.

The place of employment will be The Hague, The Netherlands.

For further information on terms and conditions, please consult the EUSR/CEOS available on Europol’s website www.europol.europa.eu.

Probation period

Engagement for this post is subject to the successful completion of a probationary period of 9 months.

If the successful candidate chooses contract continuity, and has already successfuly completed the probationary period provided for in Article 14 of the CEOS, in the relevant function group, he/she will not serve the probationary period.

Europol reserves the right to terminate the contract of employment during or at the end of the probation period in accordance with Article 14 CEOS.

Security screening and certificate of good conduct

Candidates who have been recruited to a post at Europol are required to furnish a valid certificate of good conduct before the start of their employment. The certificate of good conduct must be provided to Europol prior to the signature of the employment contract. The certificate of good conduct must be issued by the relevant authorities of the country of nationality of the candidate and must not be older than three months at the time of submission to Europol. Europol reserves the right not to proceed with the signature of the contract based on the content of the certificate or if the candidate fails to provide the certificate to Europol.

The certificate of good conduct does not substitute a valid security clearance required for all Europol staff at the level indicated in the vacancy notice. Failure to obtain the requisite security clearance may be cause for termination of the employment contract.

Candidates who currently hold a valid security clearance at the level indicated in the vacancy notice or above do not need to obtain a certificate of good conduct or a new security clearance and must provide a copy of the current security clearance certificate to Europol prior to the signature of the employment contract. Europol shall verify and confirm the continued validity of the security clearance. In case Europol determines that the security clearance is not valid, the candidate will be required to provide a valid certificate of good conduct prior to the signature of the employment contract. Europol may at any time terminate the employment contract if the result of the security screening is not positive and the necessary clearance level is not granted or extended.

The requested level of security clearance for this post is: CONFIDENTIAL UE/EU CONFIDENTIAL.

8. Additional information

Equal opportunity

Europol is an equal opportunity employer. Europol accepts applications without distinction on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, national, ethnic or social origin, religion or beliefs, family situation, age, disability, or other non-merit factors. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and qualifications, experience and skills.

Europol lives diversity and provides an inclusive work environment to all. Europol strives to recruit, develop and retain a diverse and talented workforce through application of equal opportunity and impartiality.

Privacy Notice

Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC, applies to the processing of personal data carried out in the process of selection and recruitment of staff at Europol,  following the application of this Regulation to all administrative personal data held by Europol in accordance with Article 27a of the Europol Regulation.

For additional information, please consult the applicable privacy notice available on Europol’s website, also inserted in the EUROPOL RECRUITMENT GUIDELINES.

Statutory obligations upon leaving the service

Pursuant to Article 16 of the EUSR, EU officials and, by analogy, temporary agents continue to be bound by the duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance of certain appointments or benefits after leaving the service. Those staff members intending to engage in an occupational activity within two years of leaving the service shall inform their institution, so that it may take an appropriate decision in that respect. In cases where the intended activity is related to the work carried out by the staff member during the last three years of service and could lead to a conflict with the legitimate interests of the institution, the decision to be taken may include forbidding the staff member from undertaking it or giving its approval subject to any conditions it thinks fit.

Main dates

Publication date:                  20 October 2026

Deadline for application:    20 November 2026, 23:59 Amsterdam Time Zone

Selection procedure:       December 2026

Application process and selection procedure

For further details on the application process and the selection procedure, please consult our FAQs or refer to the EUROPOL RECRUITMENT GUIDELINES available on Europol’s website.

Contact details

In case of further questions please call +31 (0) 70 353 1154 or +31 (0) 70 302 5040.

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