Contracts IT

Domain delivery lead, public sector digital transformation

Location: Brussels, Belgium (hybrid, 2 days per week on site)

Contract: Freelance, 1 to 2 years

Start: As soon as possible

Languages: Native Dutch or French, plus good English

The opportunity

Our client, a Belgian federal public administration, is running a major digital transformation programme to modernise its business applications, strengthen collaboration between teams and build a more integrated, agile IT landscape. The programme is organised into domains, each led by a Domain Delivery Lead who brings several agile squads together around one vision.

We are recruiting three Domain Delivery Leads, each owning one domain of the programme

Platform & Integration: the cross-domain technical backbone: integration, releases, Azure cloud, DevOps, security and data migration.

Public Sector Transformation: a high-profile, politically sensitive public service domain.

Digital Public Services: a domain delivering strategic applications behind core public services.

All three are senior delivery and programme management roles. You lead through influence, clarity of vision and trust rather than control. You will not be writing code or building infrastructure; you make it possible for several agile teams to deliver.

What you will do

Unite several agile squads around a shared vision and keep business and team priorities aligned

Create the conditions for autonomy and coach teams towards maturity (servant leadership)

Build the overall plan with the teams, manage cross-team dependencies and arbitrate priorities transparently

Run domain rituals: cross-team syncs, reviews and retrospectives

Remove blockers by connecting the teams with the business, IT and other domains

Manage change requests, report progress and risks to governance bodies and escalate in good time

Manage suppliers as partners and own the domain budget

What the client is really looking for

A builder, not a caretaker: someone who likes to create, evolve and unite teams, brings fresh ideas and challenges existing practices.

A servant leader: you lead through trust, remove obstacles and help squads grow in autonomy.

A strong business to IT translator: you explain complex IT in simple business language and turn policy and business needs into a clear roadmap.

Proven at scale in the public sector: multiple squads, budgets and capacity on large digital transformations, ideally in government.

Must have (all roles)

10+ years in a similar role, coordinating and steering multiple teams

5+ years of Agile delivery in complex IT environments

10+ years of project experience with complex stakeholder management on digitalisation projects

10+ years of project team leadership

A business to IT bridge background, such as senior Product Owner, Business Relationship Manager or Programme Director

Leading large multidisciplinary teams split across several squads

Budget and capacity management within public budget envelopes

Strong project management, governance and delivery practices

Business process reengineering and change management in digital transformations

Understanding of application lifecycle management

Public sector experience

Native Dutch or French speaker with good English

Additional must haves: platform & integration:

Solution architecture and integration: critical path, API, messaging and batch patterns, interface contracts, versioning, reference data and workflow engines (for example Camunda)

Release and environment management: Dtap, cross-team releases, cutover and rollback planning, end-to-end test strategy

Azure: Landing Zone concepts, Entra ID, RBAC, PIM, Kubernetes, GitOps, Infrastructure as Code and FinOps basics

Advanced Azure DevOps (work item hierarchies, Delivery Plans, dependencies, reporting), CI/CD and branching strategies

Security and compliance: NIS2, GDPR for sensitive personal data, RPO/RTO, retention, logging and formal risk acceptance

Data and migration: CDC and ETL flows to a data platform, running data migration as its own workstream

Scrum and ITIL certifications

Additional must haves: public sector transformation:

Proven project management inside a public administration or public body, leading complex projects or digital transformation

Understanding of institutional dynamics and managing conflicting priorities in a politically sensitive environment, while staying neutral

Nice to have

Platform & Integration only. The other two roles have no nice-to-haves; candidates are assessed on the must-haves.

Large-scale European IT systems

Obser