Solutions Architect

As a member of the Central Government architecture capability, you design and deliver best-in-class  solutions that meet the business and technical needs of our clients, ensuring technical and  architectural integrity, and delivering to time, cost and quality criteria. 

The role of the Solution Architect is to ensure that the critical services delivered to our clients are  designed and delivered to the highest quality standards, leveraging expertise, experience and best  practices in solution design and delivery across the full project lifecycle. 

Requirements

Key Responsibilities 

• Collaborate with colleagues across other disciplines to ensure consideration of architecture at all stages of the delivery lifecycle and to ensure input into architecture processes. 

• Collaborates with other specialists to ensure advice given is appropriate to the organisation's needs 

• Guide client organisations to make appropriate business, technology and data decisions by recommending reuse, sustainability and scalability, to achieve value for money and reduce risk 

• Lead the delivery of moderately complex application modernisation and migration initiatives for legacy services 

• Defines and manages scoping, requirements definition (functional & non-functional) and prioritisation activities for initiatives of medium/large size and/or high complexity 

• Design and communication of high-level artefacts to guide the design and development of integrated solutions that meet customer requirements. 

• Identifies and evaluates alternative architectures and the trade-offs in cost, performance and scalability. Determines and documents architecturally significant decisions 

• Lead the solution definition and delivery for a wide range of projects and programmes.

• Models, simulates or prototypes the behaviour of proposed high complexity system components 

• Produces design specifications to form the basis for the construction of complex systems. Reviews, verifies and contributes to the designs of other team members. 

• Translate business and user needs into the design of solution architectures for external clients, and internal delivery teams. 

• Uses appropriate architectural modelling techniques following agreed architectures, design standards, patterns and methodology 

• Champions the importance and value of system design principles and the selection of appropriate systems design life cycle models.  

• Contribute to architectural principles, policies and standards 

• Ensures adherence to applicable standards (corporate, industry, national and international).

• Provide advice, leadership and mentoring for teams, defining standards and best practices

• Act as pre-sales architect for bids and proposals, assisting with estimation and planning. 

• Participate in business development providing architectural input and meeting with clients to  secure new business. 

• Work as part of a team to design proof of concepts and deliver client demonstrations.

• Work as part of a team to develop architectures for industry focused sales propositions. 

• Identification of new and emerging industry trends, software, technologies, products, services,  methods and techniques and the assessment of their relevance and potential value for solutions,  improvements in cost/performance or sustainability.  

• Mentor junior team members, providing feedback and support to career development. 

• Participate in development of internal architecture capability, including contributing to identification  and definition of best practices, standards and ways of working. 

• Promotion of emerging technology awareness among staff and business management.

• Support identification of training needs across internal delivery teams. 

• Actively maintains knowledge in one or more identifiable specialisms 

• Consult and support collaboration across client business 

• Participates in and can lead meetings with stakeholders. 

Personal attributes: 

• Degree level education, or equivalent. 

• Able to work independently or as part of a multi-disciplinary team 

• Ability to articulate and present different points-of-views on various technologies and architecture  patterns. 

• Understands and communicates industry developments, and the role and impact of technology 

• Consultancy skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders at  senior levels. 

• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to guide, direct, motivate and support staff either directly  or indirectly. 

• Highly customer focused, able to quickly build trust and develop customer intimacy • Promotes a learning and growth culture in their area of accountability. 

• Actively support and promotes the development and sharing of specialist knowledge within the  organisation. 

• Solution-oriented with the imagination to identify innovative approaches to critical problems. 

• Effective time management and an ability to recognise and respond to changing priorities and  requirements. 

• Good organisation skills.

• Self-starting and self-motivated with a positive, can-do attitude.  

• Strong team-player, able to work well with others. 

Technologies, Methodologies and Frameworks: 

• End-to-end experience of Secure Software Development Lifecycle processes and methodologies.

• Experience working with multi-disciplinary teams. 

• Knowledge and experience of applying best practice for handling personal data. E.g., GDPR. 

• Knowledge and experience of applying best practice for solution security. E.g., OWASP, NCSC  cloud security principles. 

• Knowledge and experience of applying best practice within one or more specialist architecture domains. 

• Knowledge and experience of delivering complex technology services across one or more specialist technology and/or business domains. 

• Strong understanding and practical experience of leading multi-discipline teams to deliver complex technology services. 

• Understands and communicates industry developments, and the role and impact of technology