Enterprise Architect
Enterprise Architect, Solutions Architect, Technical Architect
You see the sprawl. Every team solving the same problem differently.
The pain you're feeling
- No consistent authorization pattern across the stack
- Developers reinventing the wheel, app by app
- Zero trust initiatives stalling because AuthZ is the missing layer
- Technical debt accumulating faster than you can address it
Your first 30 days
Inventory the current state
Map authorization approaches across your top 10-20 services. Where does the logic live? Who owns it? What patterns are used?
Find the pain point
Identify the most painful integration point—the app or domain where access control is blocking progress or causing the most maintenance burden.
Sketch the target state
Design what "externalized authorization" would look like in your architecture. Where would a policy decision point sit? How would apps call it?
Evaluate realistically
Assess one approach (build, OPA, platform) against your specific requirements. Be honest about the build vs. buy tradeoffs.
Questions to ask internally
- How many different authorization patterns do we have across our services?
- What's the developer cost of maintaining access logic today?
- If we needed to add a new access control requirement across all apps, how long would it take?
Traps to avoid
- Underestimating the long-term cost of DIY—the engine is the easy part
- Over-engineering the first iteration—start with a pilot, not a platform
- Ignoring the business user angle—policies that only developers can read become bottlenecks
When to go deeper
When you're ready to design the authorization layer architecture, or when you need to evaluate specific platforms against your integration requirements.