Overview
SmartSearch’s distinctive Anti‑Money Laundering verification software protects our clients by offering the most advanced and comprehensive features available from an AML provider. We are unifying mature product estates and multiple internal systems into a single organisation that delivers a seamless customer experience, consistent data foundation, and scalable commercial growth. As our Enterprise Architect, you will shape the end‑to‑end platform strategy spanning applications, integration, data, AI, and security to ensure the organisation operates as one. Your mandate is to design and socialise a customer‑centric, API‑first, identity‑aware, governed and observable architecture that accelerates product innovation, reduces operational friction, and strengthens trust with clients.
You will stay close enough to the technology to produce reference implementations that de‑risk adoption, while influencing senior stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Commercial, Finance, Compliance and Customer Operations to ensure architectural decisions are business‑aligned, commercially viable, and safe for customers.
Responsibilities
* Enterprise Target State Architecture (Customer‑Centric North Star) – Define the future‑state architecture across applications, data, integration, security and operations, anchored in customer experience, commercial strategy, and regulatory requirements.
* Map current → target states with clear transition phases that minimise customer disruption and support predictable delivery.
* Establish non‑functional baselines (reliability, performance, disaster recovery, security, cost) that directly support customer SLAs and commercial commitments.
* Provide clear architectural principles and guardrails that enable teams to move quickly without compromising safety or coherence.
* Integration & Platform Unification (Internal + SaaS + Product Estate) – Design an API‑first integration fabric that connects internal systems, SaaS platforms, and product estates into a unified operating environment.
* Define Azure integration patterns (APIM, Functions/App Service, Service Bus/Event Hubs, Logic Apps) and Entra ID identity standards to ensure secure, least‑privilege access across the ecosystem.
* Publish interface contracts, versioning policies, and change‑control processes that protect customer experience and operational stability.
* Maintain a live catalogue of interfaces, dependencies, and data flows to support impact analysis, risk management, and transparent governance.
* Enterprise‑Wide Data Strategy & Canonical Models – Own the organisation‑wide data strategy, covering transactional data structures, analytical models, lineage, governance, privacy, and consumption.
* Establish Microsoft Fabric as the governed backbone for enterprise data (OneLake, lakehouse/warehouse, medallion zones, pipelines/dataflows).
* Define systems‑of‑record and canonical models (customer, agreement, usage, billing, financials) that ensure consistency across products, operations, and reporting.
* Set data‑quality thresholds, lineage standards, and auditability requirements that support regulatory compliance and customer trust.
* Partner with Product, Commercial and Customer Operations to ensure data structures enable revenue growth, customer insights, and operational efficiency.
* AI & Agentic Orchestration Layer – Evaluate and design an orchestration layer that exposes common capabilities and integrates agentic‑native APIs/AI (tool‑use/function calling, retrieval, policy‑aware orchestration).
* Define safety, privacy, observability, and cost guardrails to ensure AI‑enabled features are customer‑safe and commercially viable.
* Shape a pragmatic pilot → scale path that demonstrates measurable value (latency reduction, cost‑to‑serve improvements, operational automation).
* Governance, Roadmap & Executive Communication – Run a lean, transparent Architecture Review cadence that accelerates decision‑making and reduces ambiguity.
* Publish a quarterly architecture roadmap aligned to customer commitments, commercial priorities, and product release cycles.
* Provide concise, evidence‑led reporting to the ELT and Board on progress, risks, and value delivered.
* Ensure architectural decisions are understood, adopted, and embedded across the organisation.
* Value Realisation & Customer‑Safe Change – Track reliability, latency, cost‑to‑serve, adoption and customer impact against plan.
* Demonstrate customer‑safe migrations with rehearsed runbooks, rollback plans, and clear communication.
* Drive decommissioning of redundant services, interfaces and data stores to reduce complexity and cost.
* Hand over a repeatable governance model that ensures long‑term stewardship of the platform and data estate.
Requirements
* Enterprise/Solution Architecture across mixed stacks (ideally .NET and PHP) with strong SQL Server/MySQL fundamentals.
* Hands‑on coding for PoCs/reference builds (modern .NET or PHP, SQL).
* Deep Azure integration experience (APIM, Functions/App Service, Service Bus/Event Hubs, Logic Apps) with strong grounding in resilience, DR, observability and cost optimisation.
* Proven delivery of Microsoft Fabric (OneLake, lakehouse/warehouse, pipelines/dataflows, Power BI) with governance, lineage and privacy controls.
* Demonstrated ownership of enterprise data strategy, including transactional and analytical data structures.
* Experience integrating SaaS platforms at scale and defining system‑of‑record/golden‑record strategies.
* Exposure to agentic/LLM patterns (tool‑use, evals/telemetry, guardrails) in production or scoped pilots.
* Strong stakeholder management and the ability to communicate clearly with executives, engineers and customers.
Life at SmartSearch
* We are a multi‑award winning Tech company with an aspirational mentality.
* Recognitions include: RegTech100 2024, Top 100 Fastest Growing Tech Companies by Northern Tech Awards 2024, Technology Provider of the Year by Corporate Finance Awards 2024.
* Great Place To Work Certified since 2022.
* Excellent progression opportunities with personal development goals, regular feedback and support.
* Diverse and inclusive team with active DE&I initiatives and community impact.
Benefits
* 25 days holiday rising to 30 with each year of service
* Private Medical Insurance covering dental and optical
* Company pension scheme
* Life Assurance – 4x your annual salary
* 1 day paid volunteering per year
* Enhanced maternity / paternity offerings
* Employee Assistance Programme
* Cycle to work scheme
* On site gym
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