Overview
Leighton: 33years and counting. Experienced and agile. Trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands. We develop and deliver custom software. We use technology to make money, save money, create efficiencies, integrate systems, solve problems. To help our customers thrive. We have a pool of talent. To manage projects. Test to high standards. Create user experiences for every type of user. We include, include, include. Our service is personal. We know your name. We can do amazing things with tech. We’ve got the talent. We decide what’s best for our customer together.
The Role
We’relooking for a seasonedPrincipal Solutions Architectto provide architectural leadership across a major platformmodernisationprogramme. This is ourhighest‑priority strategic initiative and sits at the heart of a widerorganisationaltransformation spanning finance, operations, commercial, contactcentre, technology, product, revenuemanagementand fraud domains.
In this role, you will guide the end‑to‑end architecture of a cloud‑native, AWS‑hosted ecosystem, ensuring strategic alignment, technical governance, and a coherent target state across multiple autonomous product teams.You’llcombine enterprise‑level architectural leadership with hands‑on support, helping teams navigate complex design decisions, cross‑domain dependencies, and the replacement of a large legacy monolith under fixed commercial timelines.
The role requires both breadth and depth across application, data, integration,securityand cloud architecture, along with strong stakeholder leadership in a politically complex environment.
What you’ll do
* Lead architecture across all domains — application, integration, data,cloudand security
* Define and evolve the target-state architecture for amodernisedholiday-packaging platform
* Govern solution decisions and run architecture decision review forums
* Establish architectural standards, patterns,guardrailsand governance models
* Translate business capabilities, valuestreamsand operational processes into technical architectures
* Review high‑level and low‑level design artefacts for alignment and quality
* Oversee API strategy, integration patterns, and AI-readiness
* Shape contact-centrearchitecture and integrations usingAmazon Connect
* Enable teams to deliver safe value with yourexpertisein information security and data privacy
* Map and manage cross‑programmedependencies and multi‑company integration challenges
* Support teams with technical spikes,PoCs, and de‑risking complex design areas
* Influence senior stakeholders and navigateorganisationalpolitics across group-level entitiesSupport executive decision-making through technical appraisal
* Align architectural decisions withtechnical strategy,commercial targets, riskconstraintsand delivery timelines
* Set and guideoperating modelsfor the transition to BAU and day 2 operations
What you’ll bring
* Deep experience spanning application, data, integration,securityand cloud architecture
* Proventrack recorddesigning and governingpublic cloud‑based platforms(AWS preferred)
* Strong working knowledge of modernevent-driven/API/microservice patterns
* Familiarity with customer support and contact‑centrejourneys
* Experience with governance in large deliveryprogrammes
* Ability to influence, review and guide architecture across distributed, autonomous product teams
* Good grasp of enterprise capability modelling, value streams, and end‑to‑end business flows
* Experience integratingnumerousthird‑party vendors and systems
* Skilled at managing architectural risk, decision trade‑offs, and long-term maintainability
* Exceptional stakeholder engagement and communication skills
* A team enablement andhost-leadership mindset, promoting best practices and engineering culture
* Comfort balancing strategic leadership with hands-on architectural contribution
Great to have
* Travel or retail industry experience is desirable, but strong experience in any large-scale consumer or regulated digital platform is equally relevant
* Experience designing multi-tenant,internationalisedsystems
* Knowledge or experience of architecting for compliance with ISO 27001, SOC 2, and PCI-DSS frameworks
* Practical experience of applying Team Topologies and Conway's Law as part of architecture practice
* Background inmodernisinglarge monolithic platforms under commercial constraints
* Knowledge of fraud‑management, revenue‑management, and financial architecture domains
* Familiarity with secure‑by‑design frameworks and regulated-cloud standards
* Experience contributing to orestablishingenterprise architecture functions
* Exposure to multi-cloud or hybrid integration environments
* Experience with modern data product architectures, data meshes, and reverse ETL
* Prior consulting experience delivering complex transformationprogrammes
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