Rafeeq Pallath

Championed the development of Architecture blueprint for the key strategic initiatives, with As-is state, Target Architecture and road map clearly defined, architecture principles and requirements clearly documented for solution design and implementation compliance and trace-ability of design quality assurance.
Defined and established the elements of Enterprise Architecture Capability in terms of people and skills, processes, frameworks, tools and templates, and governance to develop and manage Architecture and Solution building blocks. Established EA touch-points with other governance modules like IT Strategy and Business Planning Process, Project Management, Software Delivery and ITSM.
Defined Capability Maturity Assessment Model for the EA Practice based on US Department of Commerce ACMM and Gartner's IT Score templates and set short term, medium term and long term capability targets for EA practice for aligning IT strategy with business strategy and for IT to deliver outcome of strategic business value.
Established the EA team ground up, by defining the organisation structure for the EA Team and roles responsibilities for EA Team of Architects of various architecture domains (Business, Application, Data, Technology), Solution Architects and Lead Enterprise Architect.
Lead the Development of EA framework customizing the TOGAF 9.2 framework based on industry best practices. Developed EA Governance framework for EA upward governance of Architecture Blueprint by Architecture Review Board (ARB) and EA downward governance of solution design, design QA and governance of the Implementation projects by Design Authority (DA) lead by EA.
Developed guidelines, principles, Techniques, Reference Architectures, Standards and Patterns for Architecture / Solution development and Integrations. Developed a weighted scoring mechanism to capture the Target Architecture requirements for the solutions compliance and to contribute for RFP preparation and Vendor solution evaluation.
Prepared and Submitted the Architecture Road map to CIO and IT Senior Management for documenting Current state of EA and designing Target state architecture that would meet the business strategy.

Lead and Managed a distributed Team of solution design specialists and software engineers for architecture, design, planning and implementation of mission critical Payment systems and components that would meet the requirements and in compliance with the Enterprise Architecture of the payments platform and overall organisation. Managed the work requests and ensured the delivery of high quality estimation and high level plan.
Lead the Architecture, Solution design and Implementation governance for the modernization of 2 legacy payment systems related to BACS payment processing and SWIFT payment processing respectively, as part of the digital transformation program on the payment platform. Lead the solution design and delivery for payment route determination capability as part of openbank/PSD2 program.
Participated and Contributed in design and architecture forums across the organisation. Lead new technology / product / tools research and adoption (PoC) exercises that would be aligned to the business and IT strategy of the organisation. Lead and Contribute in development of technical standards, best practices, methodologies.
Acted as the Design Authority for projects that impacts payments application platform and ensured that the projects delivery is fit for purpose and is aligned to Road map and Enterprise Architecture of the Payments department and overall Bank. Communicated the solution with stakeholders from Business, Project/Programme Management and IT Infrastructure to build understanding and acceptance.
Collaborated with architects and designers from Core banking systems, Channels Applications etc to design highly inter-operable Application Integration solution based on open standards and is aligned to standards and patterns defined in the Enterprise Architecture.
Lead the collaborative effort with business and technology SMEs to design the target architecture and IT Road map for Payment platform applications, aligned to the business strategy and initiatives. Participate and contribute in developing IT strategy and architecture in overall technology organisation that aligned to business strategy.
Kept up with technology trends and innovation, and contributed to techstock, hackathon events for nurturing innovative culture in the organisation. Mentored Tech Leads, Software Designers and Software Engineers on technical, design and architecture skill development.

Responsible for the Technical Leadership of the projects in Telephony platform consists of Contact center (IVR, Customer Service Agent Desktop, Call routing) systems, its back-end services and an integrated MI platform.
Lead a distributed team of software developers and testers of different technology expertise from internal organisation as well as from external vendor organisations. Lead the project design forums and technical implementation activities for complex projects. Lead the implementation planning and deployment activities.
Worked with Project/Program management to prepare estimations and contribute to developing project plans and resource profile for the new projects. Reviewed design and build artifacts and provide technology sign-off. Helped document the Infrastructure requirements, discuss and resolve dependencies and conflicts with IT operations department and other systems and applications.
Provided expertise for the new project requests on the platform, participate and contribute in requirement gathering and initial planning stages. Collaborated with project managers, business users, analysts, developers, testers and technical support teams in various phases for successful delivery of the projects. Worked with test manager for preparing test strategies, test environment setup and other related activities. Worked with testing team for providing directions on functional and non-functional hot-spots
Lead the proof of concepts (poc) and product research and evaluation efforts on the solution that would require new technology or product adoption. Participated in design and implementation of standards, tools and methodologies.
Delivered high quality solution design for payment use cases in Telephony transformation program, which modernized Telephony services from legacy platform to a digital platform. Owned end-end design and delivery leadership of the Telephony platform for Williams & Glynn Program, which is arguably one of the largest and complex divestment program in the history banking and financial industry.

Analysed and designed application designs and component architectures that would meet business requirements and technical standards. Collaborated with business and Contributed to requirement elicitation process.
Owned and delivered high quality technical designs and mentored junior developers and Vendor partner resources in implementing the design. Participated in implementation and post implementation activities.
Presented Application design and related artifacts in review forums and gained sign-off. Reviewed and signed off component design and unit test cases
Contribute in preparing estimation, scoping and high level solution design and architectures. Contribute in preparing test strategy and test plans.
Participated in technology events and develop subject matter expertise in technical and functional domains.

Patni Computers was later acquired by i-Gate Technologies, which was later acquired by CapGemini - A french based multinational IT Services Firm.
Worked as development lead to lead the development team and report to Team Lead / Project manager.
Undertook Requirement specification, Application designs, component design, Coding, Unit testing, Implementation and code configuration
management activities. Prepared and presented artifacts of each phase in the SDLC.
Developed Interface design specification for Web services used in C&W applications.
Interfaced with client team/SMEs for requirement clarity, design understanding query resolution etc. Presented technical designs to client, drive
the review process and acquire required sign-off.
Trained new developers on technology and application domain.
Developed designs and software programs for 2 key client acquisition for Ge-Money Credit card application processing platform. Designed and
developed programs for key use cases related service provisioning, Payments and Line-Plant for Cable Wireless International.