Lead Pega Systems Architect

Role: Lead Pega Systems Architect Location: Frankfurt Germany (Remote) Type: Contract/Permanent Summary of Position The Lead Systems Architect (LSA) is the senior technical authority responsible for designing, integrating, and scaling Pega Customer Decision Hub (CDH) solutions within a client’s enterprise ecosystem. The LSA specializes in backend system integrations; ensuring real-time, reliable, secure, and high-volume data exchange between CDH and customer platforms such as CRM, MDM, billing, data lakes, marketing clouds, event hubs, and channel systems. This role provides architectural leadership, establishes integration standards, and ensures the technical integrity and performance of all CDH-related services. Key Responsibilities Enterprise Architecture & Integration Design Architect end-to-end integration patterns between Pega CDH and enterprise systems using REST/JSON, SOAP, Kafka, MQ, SFTP, and ETL pipelines Define high-level and detailed architecture blueprints, including data flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, integration specifications, and deployment architectures Ensure integrations support real-time decisioning, high throughput, low latency, and high availability across all customer touchpoints Select and enforce standards for authentication, authorization, encryption, error handling, retries, logging, and API versioning Technical Leadership & Delivery Oversight Serve as the technical lead for integration workstreams across all environments (Dev → Prod) Review and approve all system integration designs, mappings, and interface specifications Guide developers and architects in building scalable and reusable components Ensure delivered integrations align with enterprise security, compliance, and architectural governance CDH Enablement & Ecosystem Orchestration Design data sourcing strategies for interaction history, customer profile feeds, decisioning data, and AI model inputs Collaborate with Decisioning Architects and Data Architects to ensure integrations enable real-time eligibility, suitability, arbitration, and propensity scoring Optimize container behaviour for inbound channels including web, mobile, contact center, ATM/kiosk, and IVR Client Engagement & Advisory Lead workshops with IT, enterprise architects, and application owners to define integration requirements Present architectural recommendations, integration patterns, and trade-offs to executive and technical stakeholders Troubleshoot complex integration issues, identify root causes, and drive long-term resolutions Quality, Performance & Governance Define non-functional requirements (NFRs) including performance benchmarks, throughput thresholds, and resiliency SLAs Oversee performance testing, failover validation, environment readiness, and capacity planning Ensure solutions adhere to SDLC best practices and are built for maintainability and scale Required Experience & Skills 8+ years of architecture experience in enterprise systems, customer platforms, or integration engineering 5+ years in Pega Platform or Pega CDH delivery, preferably in an LSA or senior integration role Deep expertise in RESTful service design, event-based architectures, and API/microservices frameworks Strong understanding of relational/NoSQL databases, real-time streaming (Kafka, Kinesis), and middleware Proficiency with security standards, high-availability patterns, and cloud-native architectures Ability to translate business requirements into robust, scalable integration solutions Excellent communication skills for technical and executive audiences Preferred / Certifications Certified Pega Lead System Architect (CLSA) required Experience with enterprise marketing technology, CDPs, CRMs, and data hub architectures Cloud certifications (AWS, Azure, or GCP) are a plus