Leighton: 33 years 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’re looking for a seasoned Principal Solutions Architect to provide architectural leadership across a major platform modernisation programme. This is our highest‑priority strategic initiative and sits at the heart of a wider organisational transformation spanning finance, operations, commercial, contact centre, technology, product, revenue management and 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’ll combine 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, security and cloud architecture, along with strong stakeholder leadership in a politically complex environment.
What You’ll Do
Lead architecture across all domains — application, integration, data, cloud and security
Define and evolve the target-state architecture for a modernised holiday-packaging platform
Govern solution decisions and run architecture decision review forums
Establish architectural standards, patterns, guardrails and governance models
Translate business capabilities, value streams and 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-centre architecture and integrations using Amazon Connect
Enable teams to deliver safe value with your expertise in information security and data privacy
Map and manage cross‑programme dependencies and multi‑company integration challenges
Support teams with technical spikes, PoCs, and de‑risking complex design areas
Influence senior stakeholders and navigate organisational politics across group-level entities; support executive decision-making through technical appraisal
Align architectural decisions with technical strategy, commercial targets, risk constraints and delivery timelines
Set and guide operating models for the transition to BAU and day 2 operations
What You’ll Bring
Deep experience spanning application, data, integration, security and cloud architecture
Proven track record designing and governing public cloud‑based platforms (AWS preferred)
Strong working knowledge of modern event-driven/API/microservice patterns
Familiarity with customer support and contact‑centre journeys
Experience with governance in large delivery programmes
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 integrating numerous third‑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 and host-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, internationalised systems
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 in modernising large 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 or establishing enterprise 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 transformation programmes
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