Lead Technical Architect
Location: Flexible across the UK, with regular travel to London
Salary: £90,000 – £100,000 depending on experience
Eligibility: All applicants must be eligible for UK Security Clearance (Resident in the UK for the last 5 years)
We’re seeking an exceptional Lead Technical Architect to join a dynamic and forward-thinking team delivering mission-critical, cloud-native systems. This is a hands-on leadership role ideal for someone with a deep technical foundation in software development, DevOps, and AWS architecture. You'll be instrumental in shaping high-level designs, driving technical delivery, and leading teams across large-scale cloud transformation projects.
What You’ll Do:
* Lead the design and delivery of scalable, secure cloud-based architectures using AWS, Kubernetes, Kafka, and Java-based microservices.
* Drive cloud security strategy, ensuring solutions meet industry best practices and regulatory standards (e.g., AWS IAM, encryption, VPC).
* Oversee containerisation and orchestration using Docker and Kubernetes to support resilient, high-availability systems.
* Architect and implement event-driven systems using Kafka and other messaging frameworks for real-time processing.
* Provide hands-on leadership across technical teams, ensuring best practices and high standards are consistently met.
* Guide the development of CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code using tools like Terraform or CloudFormation.
* Collaborate with DevOps and product teams to align architectural strategy with business goals.
* Promote cost-effective cloud solutions through optimisation and performance tuning.
* Ensure all solutions align with security, compliance, and governance requirements.
* Create and maintain architectural documentation and promote standardisation across teams.
Who You Are:
* A seasoned technical architect (8+ years experience) with a strong AWS delivery background, ideally holding one or more AWS certifications.
* Extensive experience with cloud security architecture, including knowledge of security best practices in cloud environments (e.g. IAM).
* You began your career in software development and have progressed into architecture, maintaining a hands-on approach.
* You bring a strong DevOps mindset, with experience building reliable CI/CD workflows and infrastructure automation.
* Experienced in designing and implementing microservices and event-driven architectures.
* Comfortable mentoring engineering teams and influencing senior stakeholders.
* Proficient in monitoring, logging, and cost management tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and AWS Cost Explorer.
* Ideally familiar with architectural frameworks like TOGAF.
Important Requirement:
Due to the nature of the work, candidates must be eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance. This means you must be a British citizen/ILR and have lived in the UK continuously for the past 5 years.
If you're looking to take the lead on complex, high-impact cloud projects with the autonomy to drive real change — we’d love to hear from you.