Lead Business Value Delivery Architect/Solution Architect

Join Sapiens as our Lead Business Value Delivery Architect / Lead Solution Architect and play a pivotal role in taking client-facing insurance solutions from the sales cycle through delivery and into SaaS and AI platform migration, holding every engagement to a designed business outcome rather than an evolving list of requirements.

About the role

This is a role that sits between presales and delivery and stays engaged across both, spanning P&C, Life, and in future Reinsurance, with a particular focus on the non functional and operational requirements our industry consistently under-invests in. If you are deeply fluent in insurance product suites and platform roadmaps, comfortable holding both a head of claims and an engineer in the same conversation, and driven to keep clients and internal teams honest to the outcomes they signed up for - we'd love to hear from you.

Working model: Johannesburg (Remote)

What you will do:

You'll own the professional and content thread of the solution end to end – across four connected areas of impact:

1. Value Definition – Presales solution design

• Engage during the sales cycle, from general discovery through down select, to build product and industry context on the opportunity.
• Frame the solution around the client's business outcomes, not a requirements checklist. Map what they are trying to achieve to what the platform actually delivers.
• Establish a business outcome baseline with the client: what they will be able to do post go live that they cannot do today, and how both sides will measure it.
• Own the definition of done, agreed jointly with the client.
• Explicitly cover non functional and operational requirements: performance, scale, availability, security, integration, data migration, operability, and support, rather than leaving them to surface in build.
• Feed into the implementation plan: the right order of implementation and the known dependencies, especially those on the client.
• Where the platform does not meet the client's expected outcomes, own the resolution with Product and R&D. Either secure a commitment to build it into the core platform, with timelines aligned accordingly, or design it into the extension layer shipped with the core. The SA owns these conversations.
• Act as the next layer of depth behind the presales and industry expert team. Presales surfaces the opportunity, the SA architects the solution.
• Support the bid with clearly stated assumptions. The fixed price commercial construct itself is owned by Sales and the PD.

1. Delivery integrity

• Move into rapid planning immediately after signing. Harden the solution against what the platform delivers, steering toward standard configuration over bespoke build.
• Hand over a clear, documented solution design to the delivery team at the start of build, and safeguard the integrity of that design through delivery.
• Hold all parties, internal teams and the client, accountable to the agreed business outcomes and how they will be achieved. This is outcome and professional accountability. The PM or PD holds delivery and the client to scope, timeline, and commitments.
• Stay engaged through quarterly business reviews to catch outcome or value drift early.
• Apply the definition of done. The project is complete only when the client is positioned to realise the value agreed at the outset, not simply when the system goes live.

1. Migration

• For assigned clients, own migration outcomes through the analyse, dispose, bridge, and migrate framework, across the existing product portfolio and beyond.
• Define, with each client, the specific value the migration unlocks and the KPIs that will confirm it. Migration is a value conversation, not only a technical one.

1. Tooling, AI, and continuous improvement

• Serve as the first internal customer for AI in delivery, and own the tools and the standard for how they are used.
• Set which source wins when inputs conflict: signed document over email, email over deck, deck over verbal.
• Set what a human must verify in AI drafted work, rather than approve on sight.
• Flag what the inputs do not say: tacit process, stakeholder disagreement, edge cases, not just what the AI summarised.
• Work as part of the SA group to improve processes, outputs, and tools for quicker, better implementations, especially the SaaS migration factory, including a feedback loop from delivery back to discovery to recalibrate where discovery got the scope wrong.

What Success Looks Like:

• Every signed programme has a documented, client agreed business outcome baseline, a joint definition of done, and go live success criteria.
• Non functional and operational requirements are surfaced and designed in up front, not discovered in build.
• Platform gaps are resolved deliberately, through a core platform commitment or an extension layer build, rather than emerging during delivery.
• Delivery builds to the handed over design with minimal rework driven by scope or requirements ambiguity.
• The SA group's processes, tools, and outputs measurably shorten implementations over time.

What we are looking for:

• You have a track record designing or leading solution design in complex, enterprise insurance implementations, ideally spanning both presales and delivery.
• Ability to speak credibly to both a head of claims and an engineer, across P&C, Life, and Reinsurance.
• Strong on non functional and operational requirements: performance, scale, availability, security, integration, operability, not only functional design.
• Demonstrated ability to hold the professional and outcome vector, keeping internal teams and clients aligned to agreed business outcomes. Given that this accountability is a core responsibility of the role, it is a required skill, not simply a welcome personality trait.
• Experience with, or strong aptitude for, legacy to SaaS or core platform migration work.
• Comfortable operating in a function that is still being built. Process and tooling will be defined in parallel with the first deals.
• You ideally have hands-on experience with cloud-native platforms and a proven track record working at Born-in-the-Cloud (BIC) companies, bringing modern SaaS delivery practices to a global enterprise environment.
• Proficient in leveraging AI-driven tools and platforms to design, optimize, and scale enterprise solution architectures.

Interested? We'd love to hear from you. Our TA partner [email protected] is your contact for any questions. We kindly ask that you apply via our website or LinkedIn.