Lead Architect (Hands-on Manager)
Hybrid, London (3 days in office, South London)
£110,000 - £130,000 + bonus + benefits
We're partnered with one of the UK's leading fitness brands on a newly created Lead Architect hire, as they build out an Architecture team function internally
This isn't a "maintain the estate" architecture role. They're in the middle of a major technology transformation across customer platforms, memberships, integrations and mobile experience, all within a business serving close to 1 million active users across 250+ physical locations nationwide
The scale is genuinely interesting:
* High-volume customer journeys
* Mobile-first member experiences
* Real-time integrations with third-party platforms and connected devices
* Operational telemetry and monitoring systems
* Future-facing work around AI
Reporting directly to the CTO, you will...
* Operate strategically, managing a team of 3-4 other Architects
* Remain hands-on and technically credible
* Be responsible for shaping the architectural blueprint across the business, defining governance, tooling, standards, and long-term target state architecture
* Bring Applied AI into the systems of the business to automate internal or customer-facing solutions
* Influence both executive-level technology direction and the reality of engineering delivery teams
* Drive architectural governance and technical direction
* Bring strong cloud-native and distributed systems experience
* Understand modern B2C digital products, subscriptions, e-commerce, or app-led businesses
What they're looking for:
* Strong Lead Architecture background within scaled digital businesses
* Experience building or evolving architecture functions
* Deep Microsoft Azure OR AWS architecture experience (They use Azure: AKS, App Services, Event Hubs, API Management etc.)
* Strong distributed systems and cloud-native architecture knowledge
* Experience designing high-availability, event-driven systems
* Ability to operate across business, engineering and product stakeholders
* Previous people leadership experience
* Awareness of modern architecture patterns: DDD, Event-driven systems, CQRS, Hexagonal Architecture, Microservices
* Proven experience in driving AI into workflows, teams, and systems
* Understanding of observability, security and compliance considerations
* Ideally some exposure to mobile / customer-facing platforms
The environment:
* Re-platforming from monolithic systems into event-driven microservices
* Large-scale backend and distributed systems challenges
* Building toward domain-driven architecture and greater engineering autonomy
* Stripe payments transformation
* Major data platform evolution into Microsoft Fabric
* A strategic mobile app rebuild likely centred around React Native
* Strong interest in AI-enabled products, DevEx, and applied AI capabilities
The environment itself is modern and ambitious without being overly corporate.
They've invested heavily into technology over the last 2 years, particularly across app and customer experience, and this role will play a major part in defining what the future technology organisation looks like.