". . Modular pillars. Unified power . ."
If you’re hiring (or job-hunting) in architecture right now, you’ve felt the shift. Boards no longer want ‘a microservices person’ or ‘an EA who writes frameworks’.
They want outcomes. The ability to carve real business capabilities out of a monolith and ship them safely. That’s the heart of composable EA and packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs). It changes how you should hire, brief, assess and present yourself.
What ‘composable’ means (in hiring terms)
A PBC is a self-contained business slice (eg Identity & Access, Payments, Case Management, Product Catalog) with:
- clear APIs/events,
- ownership of its data product (schema, lineage, SLAs),
- and the non-functionals to run in the wild (security, cost, reliability).
Hiring lens: Don’t ask “microservices?” Ask, “Which capability did you own? What contract did it expose? What outcome did it move?”
Interview for outcomes, not opinions
Signals to look for . .
- Boundary thinking: Can the candidate draw the capability contract in 5 minutes?
- Data ownership: Talks source of truth, publishes a data product, doesn’t spray writes across shared tables.
- Decoupling in practice: Uses events for choreography; can explain blast radius.
- Security by default: AuthZ model, secrets, audit trail, regulator-friendly evidence.
- Change strategy: Strangler moves, cutover, rollback, and how they proved they were “done”.
Fast, fair assessment . .
- Whiteboard prompt: “Design a Case Management PBC. Show APIs, key events, data product, and NFRs. Call out risks and the migration path.”
- Take-home (time-boxed): A thin API + one event + a README documenting contract, SLOs, and test approach.
- Case study debrief: “Show us the most recent capability you shipped. What changed in lead time, failure rate, or cost?”
What great CVs look like in a composable world
Trade task lists for impact statements, tied to a capability:
- “Led extraction of Identity & Access PBC from monolith; deployed SSO/MFA/PAM patterns; reduced onboarding time by 42%, cut P1 auth incidents to zero in 90 days.”
- “Designed Payments PBC with evented reconciliation; RPO ≤15m, chargeback dispute time –30%; retired 18 legacy jobs.”
- “Published governed data product for Case outcomes (SLA, lineage, retention); enabled regulatory dashboard with no manual collation.”
Team and operating model matter more than tech
Composable fails when the org stays monolithic.
- One team per PBC, owning roadmap, budget, on-call.
- Platform team sets standards: API gateway, event mesh, identity, observability, cost controls.
- Governance without drag: Architecture runway > patterns > design reviews > acceptance gates. Keep a decision backlog and waiver log.
- Funding shift: From project bursts to capability/product funding so teams persist.
Profiles you actually need (and how to spot them)
- Enterprise Architect (capability-led): Turns strategy into 3 > 5 PBCs with clear contracts and a sequencing plan.
- Solution/Platform Architect: Lands API/event patterns, security, and runtime on cloud/K8s with real SLOs.
- Data/Integration Architect: Treats data as a product; governs sharing via contracts, not back-door joins.
- Eng Lead/Tech Lead: Makes the cutover real; owns pipelines, tests, and rollback.
Commercial models that keep you honest
- AaaS (fractional): Borrow a capability lead to design the runway and coach the team.
- Outcome-based SOW: Fixed deliverables and acceptance gates for one PBC at a time.
- Contingent talent: Backfill with engineers who’ve shipped a capability, not just 'used Kubernetes'.
Composable EA is how you change safely at speed. Hire for capability ownership and measurable outcomes.
Present yourself the same way. If you can explain the boundary, land the contract, and prove the impact - you’ll stand out, secure the right talent, and move your organisation from brittle monoliths to businesses built from parts you can replace.
