Solutions Architect

We're a FTSE 250 Financial Services company who specialise in retirement solutions and right now, our world is moving pretty quickly. With the defined benefit buy in / buy out space growing each year, Just continues to annually grow its business by over £4bn of assets.

We are a purpose driven company with compelling and credible goals. Quite simply, we help people achieve a better later life. We achieve this by providing competitive and innovative products, services, financial advice and guidance to help our customers achieve security, certainty and provide them with peace of mind in retirement.

That's who we are. We're a company on a mission: to become a beacon for the entire retirement industry. Because we believe everyone deserves a fair, secure, and fulfilling retirement.

Purpose

Aligned with the company's growth, we are now recruiting for a new role in the Solution Architecture team to support Retail Technology in:

1. Designing and assisting in delivering technical solutions in line with the company's business and systems strategies, digital transformation objectives, standards and policies.
2. Contributing to the creation and maintenance of technology roadmaps and overall system strategy.
3. Working closely with the business community to identify new opportunities of how & where technology can be used to provide business benefit.

Job Role Accountabilities

1. Evaluate (and recommend) solutions, including costs and impact.
2. Ensure solutions align to the Business and Systems Strategy.
3. Ensure solutions meet Regulatory, Legal and Risk requirements.
4. Ensure roadmaps and strategy are understood in both technical teams and the wider business.
5. Define non-functional Requirements (NFRs), major system elements, subsystems, and interfaces.
6. Lead the design for change initiatives within the company's agile framework and ensure the design is safeguarded throughout the change lifecycle.
7. Define design iterations aligned to business MVP and encourage and promote evolutionary design.
8. Increase business awareness of new technologies and existing system capabilities.
9. Evaluate and recommend tools, patterns and practices.
10. Maintain an up to date knowledge of technology, industry and the business.

Examples of Key Activities

1. Collaborate with business stakeholders, programme managers, product owners, development teams, 3rd parties and suppliers to define options and solutions.
2. Attend all relevant agile ceremonies, including lean start-up, programme increment planning and refinement sessions to safeguard the design.
3. Attend all architecture community sessions.
4. Present designs to the Technical Design Authority.
5. Review software requests as part of the Software and Services Approval Board.
6. Review change requests as an architecture approver on the Change Advisory Board.
7. Enable teams to make decisions through prototypes/proof of concepts, guidelines, advice and collaborative working practices.
8. Mentor and supports colleagues, attend or organise communities of practice centred around technologies or systems.
9. Collaborate with architecture colleagues in improving the architecture community.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

Essential for the role:

1. Significant, proven commercial experience working in Technology, ideally within Financial Services.
2. Commercial experience of Solution Architecture in an agile framework.
3. Self-Motivated and driven, able to work with little supervision, with a demonstrable track record in delivering large-scale and/or complex solutions.
4. Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and appropriately to a technical and non-technical audience.
5. A demonstrable personal interest in technology.
6. In-depth knowledge of the Microsoft development technology stack and a demonstrable record in developing and architecting Microsoft-based applications.
7. A demonstrable ability to handle multiple concurrent initiatives.
8. Proven ability to work in a collaborative agile environment and to coach and mentor others.
9. Skills in architecting solutions using Microsoft Azure, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.
10. Ability to integrate solutions with 3rd party platforms and services.
11. Architecting applications using .Net, React, micro services and APIs.
12. Knowledge of architecture design patterns (SOA, event-driven micro-services, APIs etc.).
13. SQL Server and other storage technologies (NoSQL/Blob etc.).

Beneficial to have experience of any of the following:

1. Actuarial and finance systems; working with regulated financial services companies; integrating in-house applications with third party solutions; integrating with and/or migrating solutions to a cloud environment.

Company Benefits

1. A Competitive Salary, Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
2. Along with 25 Days Annual Leave plus an Additional Day on us for your Birthday.
3. Private Medical Cover and Income Protection, just in case.
4. A generous and highly achievable bonus scheme - paid annually based on individual and company performance against targets.
5. Opportunity to progress within your career both in-role and within the company.
6. FREE access to the Headspace App, a 24/7 Employee Assistance Helpline and Trained Physical & Mental Health First Aiders (On-Site).
7. A variety of Employee Funded Benefits available to you via our Online Benefits Portal.
8. Plus, several additional purchase options available for you and your loved ones.

Why Just?

We are committed to building a more sustainable business and have publicly committed to reduce our scope 3 emissions to Net Zero by 2050 and our scope 1 and 2 emissions to Net Zero by 2025. We've made good progress so far and encourage our people to make small and meaningful changes in their everyday lives, so that we can protect our planet for future generations.

Diversity, Equity and inclusion (DE&I) is a key priority for Just as part of our overall strategy and ensuring all of our people feel proud to work at Just. We have joined a number of initiatives including the Race at Work Charter, designed to improve outcomes for employees from underrepresented backgrounds. We also run a Reciprocal Mentoring scheme for employees from a BAME background, those with a disability and those who identify as LGBTQ+. There are multiple employee network groups, which champion issues including race, gender, social mobility and neurodiversity.

What's clear about working at Just is that we care. We care about our customers, our purpose, our environment, inclusivity, wellbeing and most importantly - each other.

At Just we encourage a flexible and agile working environment for the majority of our opportunities. Get in touch with us to discuss in more detail.