TM Forum SOM Architect

TM Forum SOM Architect - Windsor and Hybrid - umbrella - £573

Role Overview
As the TM Forum SOM Architect, you will define, design, and govern the Service & Order Management (SOM) architecture within the Energy Services Platform programme, ensuring alignment to TM Forum's Open Digital Architecture (ODA), Open APIs, and industry best practice. While ownership of COM sits with existing leads, this role owns the SOM domain and acts as the end-to-end integrator across COM, EPC, downstream fulfilment systems, and operational teams - ensuring a coherent Lead-to-Order and Order-to-Activate architecture.
You will work closely with the COM Lead, Salesforce Programme Architect, and Enterprise Architecture (EA) team to ensure cross-domain alignment, consistent standards, and strong governance through Design Authority.

Key Responsibilities
SOM Architecture Ownership
- Own the TMF-aligned SOM architecture across order capture, decomposition, orchestration, life cycle, and fulfilment integration.
- Apply TMF 641/640/638 patterns consistently across all product lines.
- Maintain SOM architectural guardrails to ensure coherence across squads.
End-to-End Architectural Alignment
- Partner closely with the COM Lead and Salesforce Programme Architect to maintain COM - SOM - Fulfilment cohesion.
- Ensure SOM consumes COM outputs correctly, without premature assetisation or over-decomposition.
- Align EPC - COM - SOM - Fulfilment flows to ensure consistent modelling.
Order Orchestration & Fulfilment Design
- Define orchestration logic across multi-product, multi-step journeys.
- Design integrations with billing, CRM, field services, scheduling, inventory, and partners.
- Ensure robust handling of dependencies, retries, fallout, partial fulfilment, and amendments.

Product & Catalogue Alignment (EPC - SOM)
- Ensure EPC product, service, and resource models are interpreted and decomposed accurately for SOM.
- Govern mapping rules from commercial constructs - service constructs - resource constructs.
- Maintain traceability and consistency across all catalogue-driven domains.

Integration Architecture (SOM-Focused)
- Govern the use of TMF Open APIs in all SOM-related integrations.
- Ensure stable, versioned, testable integration contracts.
- Define canonical interaction patterns for orchestration, activation, assurance, and life cycle events.

Technical Leadership & Delivery Governance
- Guide SOM designers, BAs, architects, and vendors on TMF-standard modelling.
- Review LLDs, solution designs, test plans, and build outputs for alignment.
- Provide architectural decisions that support multi-squad agile delivery.

Stakeholder Management
- Work with Product Owners, Operations, Fulfilment SMEs, and Transformation teams to shape the SOM roadmap.
- Communicate SOM implications and constraints clearly across squads.
Change Management, Communication & TMF Advocacy

Driving TMF Adoption Across the Programme
- Act as the champion for TMF ODA and Open API principles across Energy Services Platform.
- Translate complex TMF concepts into practical, digestible guidance for delivery teams.
- Promote consistent use of TMF terminology, patterns, and modelling approaches.

Education & Behavioural Adoption
- Lead training, design clinics, and reference walkthroughs to build capability across the programme.
- Produce playbooks, standards, and reference materials to support consistent delivery.
- Identify gaps in TMF understanding and proactively close them.

Communication & Alignment
- Ensure COM, SOM, Billing, Data, and Fulfilment teams maintain a unified understanding of end-to-end architecture.
- Facilitate cross-squad alignment and prevent design divergence.
- Communicate architectural decisions with clarity, rationale, and downstream impacts.

Advocacy & Culture Shift
- Advocate for catalogue-driven, standardised, TMF-compliant approaches.
- Influence leadership to adopt TMF-backed patterns as the default.
- Ensure TMF adherence becomes Embedded in BAU delivery and governance.
- Enterprise Architecture & Design Authority Engagement

Engagement With Enterprise Architecture (EA)
- Ensure EA is consulted early on architectural decisions, SOM patterns, and design options.
- Provide clear artefacts and documentation to enable EA review and governance.
- Align SOM designs with enterprise-wide principles, domain strategy, and target state.

Enabling Effective EA Governance
- Support EA in exercising Design Authority by providing well-structured, traceable designs.
- Coordinate design reviews and approvals through established governance forums.
- Contribute to EA's ongoing evolution of enterprise patterns, standards, and roadmaps.

Representation at Design Authority
- Represent the SOM architecture at DA forums, presenting options, trade-offs, and recommendations.
- Ensure SOM design changes, assumptions, and cross-domain dependencies are appropriately reviewed and approved.
- Strengthen DA processes through feedback, documentation, and best practice.

Succession Planning & Knowledge Transfer

Proactive Capability Building
- From the outset, work to ensure that SOM architectural knowledge is Embedded within permanent teams, not held solely by the contractor role.
- Build internal capability through mentoring, structured knowledge transfer, and repeatable artefacts.
- Ensure EPC, COM, SOM, and Fulfilment teams understand the reasoning behind architectural decisions.

Reducing Single-Point-of-Failure Risk
- Document patterns, standards, design rationales, and architectural decisions in a way that is easily maintainable by internal staff.
- Ensure responsibilities can be absorbed by internal architects, BAU teams, or managed service partners when needed.
- Proactively identify future successors and support their upskilling.

Long-Term Sustainability
- Design SOM architecture that is maintainable, comprehensible, and governable long after contract completion.
- Ensure the programme is never dependent on individual contractors by building a durable architecture operating model.
- Support a smooth, planned handover whenever required.