Project Architect

Project overview

Possibility for freelance, no subcontracting.

Project details

maximum €95 per hour. Description The Information Management Directorate of Leiden University is looking for a Project Architect for the Information Management Directorate. Do you want to play a key role as a project architect in shaping a future-proof, evolving architecture team and contribute to the digitalization of Leiden University within the domains of education, research, and operations? What will you do Leiden University is in the midst of a major digitalization task.

To achieve the ambitions in high-quality education, leading research, and efficient, agile operations, a modern and coherent information landscape is crucial. The university faces the challenge of simplifying processes, reducing administrative burdens, and migrating to a manageable, interoperable, and secure application and data landscape. As a project architect, you will strengthen our central architecture team. Within the team, we distribute projects and issues based on priority, expertise, and capacity.

We collaborate collegially while simultaneously building step by step on the professionalization and maturity of our own architecture practice and methods. You will make concrete architectural contributions to various strategic projects and programs within the university portfolio. You will bridge the gap between the Enterprise Architecture (EA) frameworks and the practicalities of projects. Your activities will focus on:

• Project Architectures & Decision Making: Designing Project Start Architectures (PSAs), target architectures, architectural decisions, and solution directions for projects within education (such as the student journey and digital learning environments), research (support for data and research workflows), and operations (such as HR, finance, ERP).
• Framework Setting from Enterprise Architecture: Reviewing and ensuring that project initiatives and solutions align with university-wide EA principles, standards, legislation, privacy, and information security.
• Driving Digitalization: Proactively identifying opportunities for harmonization, standardization, reusability, autonomy, AI, and cloud solutions across domain boundaries.
• Integration & Chain Collaboration: Visualizing and ensuring how processes, data, information flows, and ICT systems connect smoothly across chains. The architectures, ADRs, and advice you deliver:
• Make visible how organizational goals, processes, data, and ICT solutions optimally align.
• Provide guidance, transparency, and clear frameworks for project managers, business analysts, product owners, and suppliers.
• Prevent fragmentation and the creation of new silos or custom solutions.
• Help the university respond agilely and effectively to technological innovation. Where will you work You will work at the Directorate of Information Management (IM) of the university. IM is responsible for the university-wide information strategy, information planning, governance of the university's project portfolio, and policy development regarding privacy, information security, and digitalization. IM falls under the operations directorate of the Executive Board Office. You will work in a team of 4 other architects under the leadership of the Enterprise Architect. You will also collaborate closely with business analysts, information managers, and project leaders, and liaise with colleagues within the seven faculties, departments, and central expertise centers. Within this team, we work closely together, coordinate, and flexibly share projects and tasks. As the team continuously develops, there is ample room to refine the working methods, standards, and templates together. Your activities (Focus, Principles & Objectives)
• Working in a team to address and elaborate on architectural issues for projects within education, research, and operations.
• Preparing Project Start Architectures (PSAs), impact analyses, Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), and transition paths (AS-IS to TO-BE) for digitalization initiatives.
• Actively contributing to and shaping the university's digitalization agenda (such as cloud transition, data-driven working, and portal and integration technology).
• Guiding project teams and suppliers in implementation according to the established architectural guidelines and decisions made.
• Identifying dependencies, synergies, and risks between projects within the portfolio.
• Making a constructive contribution to the further development and maturity of the architecture team and the applied standards. Organization Description Leiden University is one of Europe's most prominent international research universities. The university has seven faculties and is located in Leiden and The Hague. URL: Leiden University Requirements
• HBO/WO work and thinking level.
• Broad experience as a project, solution, or information architect in complex organizations with diverse stakeholders (experience within higher education or the public sector is a plus).
• Experience in translating strategic digitalization issues into workable project and solution architectures.
• Demonstrable experience in explicitly documenting architectural decisions (e.g., via ADRs) and knowledge of architecture frameworks and modeling standards (such as TOGAF and ArchiMate).
• Insight into process design, data governance (ownership of data and processes), and modern IT landscapes (integrations, APIs, Cloud/SaaS).
• Strong communication and advisory skills; you move easily between technology, project management, and faculty/administrative stakeholders.
• Good command of Dutch and English. Wishes A collegial team player: you share knowledge, enjoy coordinating with fellow architects, and naturally contribute to advancing the team and its methods together. Pragmatic and results-oriented: you know how to translate EA frameworks into practical, achievable choices for projects. Sharp analytical: you quickly grasp the essence of complex processes and interests. Critical and constructive: you dare to question historically grown working methods and steer towards standardization where possible and customization where necessary.
• Start: 2026-11-30T23:00:00
• Location: Leiden Zuid-Holland, NL
• Languages: Dutch