ServiceNow Platform Architect

About the ICRC

Since 1863, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to preserve human dignity and relieve suffering caused by war and armed violence.

In collaboration with our Red Cross and Red Crescent partners around the world, we do everything we can to deliver life-saving aid, reconnect families and locate missing people - helping those who need it most, regardless of who they are and what side of the front line they are on.

We engage with authorities and armed forces on all sides, often confidentially, pressing for access to detainees to improve their living conditions and urging compliance with international humanitarian law to protect non-combatants, including from digital threats.

Purpose of the Role

The ServiceNow Platform Architect is the end-to-end technical and architectural authority for the ServiceNow platform across the organization. The role holder defines the platform’s target architecture, hosting strategy and technical roadmap, and remains hands-on in design and development to ensure that what is built matches what is designed.

The role covers the full platform lifecycle, from enterprise and solution architecture to development, integration, deployment and operations, across both self-hosted (on-premise) and ServiceNow-hosted (cloud) instances. The ServiceNow Platform Architect works closely with Enterprise Architects, Product Owners, Project Managers, Security, Infrastructure and Data teams, developers and external partners. Together, they deliver a secure, scalable and upgradeable platform that aligns with enterprise architecture standards, data protection requirements and business objectives, while keeping technical debt under control.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

• Platform Architecture and Roadmap: Define and own the target architecture and multi-year technical roadmap, in line with enterprise architecture, IT strategy and ServiceNow product evolution.
• Hosting and Infrastructure: Govern hosting strategies across on-premise and ServiceNow cloud environments. This covers topology, high availability, disaster recovery, backups, capacity planning, performance and infrastructure maintenance.
• Solution Design Authority: Review and approve solution designs. Enforce architectural standards, CSDM and out-of-the-box principles, and arbitrate between configuration, customization and custom development.
• Hands-on Development and Technical Leadership: Design, develop and review complex ServiceNow solutions. Establish coding standards and reusable patterns, and ensure implementations are maintainable, scalable and upgradeable.
• Integration Architecture: Design and govern secure integrations with enterprise systems using APIs, IntegrationHub, MID Servers and event-driven patterns. Ensure consistent interface standards, documentation and data flows.
• Data and CMDB Governance: Own the platform data architecture. This includes CMDB, CSDM, discovery, service mapping, data quality, retention and data protection.
• DevOps and Release Management: Govern development environments, source control, CI/CD pipelines, Azure DevOps integration, automated testing, deployment controls, release traceability and rollback procedures.

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• Security, Compliance and Risk Management: Ensure compliance with security policies and data protection requirements. Achieve this through access controls, encryption, privileged access management, vulnerability remediation, patching and audit traceability.
• Upgrades and Lifecycle Management: Lead platform upgrade planning, impact analysis, regression testing and plugin lifecycle management to maintain compatibility, stability and vendor support.
• Operations and Service Reliability: Oversee platform health, monitoring, performance, licensing, incident and problem management, root cause analysis and continuous improvement. Coordinate with ServiceNow Support and third-party providers.
• Operational Readiness and Governance: Define go-live readiness criteria, SLAs, KPIs, alerting, escalation procedures, support models, operational handovers and runbook standards.
• Architecture Standards and Reviews: Establish and enforce enterprise-wide architectural principles, technical standards and integration policies. Participate in Architecture Review Boards to validate designs and major changes.
• Documentation and Knowledge Management: Maintain architecture decisions, technical specifications, interface control documents, diagrams, operational procedures, support models and governance artefacts, and review them regularly.
• Technical Leadership and Knowledge Transfer: Lead and coach internal and external developers and engineers. Coordinate technical training, facilitate the ServiceNow community of practice and ensure effective knowledge transfer to operational teams.
• Innovation, Sourcing and Partner Management: Evaluate emerging ServiceNow capabilities and conduct proofs of concept. Support licensing and hosting assessments, contribute to procurement decisions and oversee managed service provider deliverables.

Education & Professional Background

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• ServiceNow Certified System Administrator (CSA) and Certified Application Developer (CAD) required.
• Certified Implementation Specialist (CIS) in one or more modules, and Certified Technical Architect (CTA) or Certified Master Architect (CMA), an asset.
• Enterprise architecture certification (e.g. TOGAF) and cloud or infrastructure certifications an asset.
• ITIL, DevOps or Agile certification (e.g. SAFe) an asset.
• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in IT, including at least 5 years in an architecture or technical authority role on enterprise platforms.
• At least 6 years of hands-on experience on the ServiceNow platform, covering both architecture and development.
• Proven experience designing and operating ServiceNow in both self-hosted (on-premise) and ServiceNow-hosted (cloud) environments, including at least one hosting migration, major upgrade or instance consolidation.
• Experience leading technical teams and steering external partners or Managed Service Providers.
• Experience in an international organization or NGO an asset.

Skills & Competencies

• Deep expertise in ITSM, CSM and the Now Platform core (data model, scripting, Flow Designer, IntegrationHub, UI Builder, scoped applications). Working knowledge of other modules (e.g. ITOM, SPM, SecOps, IRM) an asset.
• Solid knowledge of infrastructure topics relevant to self-hosted instances, including databases, load balancing, networking, high availability, backup and disaster recovery.
• Demonstrated expertise in secure platform design (RBAC, ACLs, encryption, SSO/identity integration, data protection principles).
• Ability to translate business needs into pragmatic architecture and to challenge requirements constructively.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Excellent spoken and written English; French a plus.

Additional Information

• Location: Geneva, Switzerland
• Type of Contract: Open-ended
• Length of Assignment: Long term assignment
• Activity Rate: 100%
• Start date: January 2027
• Recruiter: Alejandra Rodriguez
• Application deadline: Thursday, 19 November 2026

Please note that the finalization of this recruitment is subject to the validation of the 2027 PfR.

The ICRC values diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive working environment. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates.

Are you ready to explore the next chapter of your career? Apply now!

For more information about working at ICRC HQ please click here.

Our Values

At the ICRC, we value impact, collaboration, respect, and compassion. We seek candidates who demonstrate behaviors based on these shared values. For more information on the ICRC values, please visit this page.