Senior Technical Architect

On behalf of DWP, we are looking for a Senior Technical Architect for a 6 Month (Inside IR35) contract based Hybrid in Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield.

As a Senior Technical Architect, you will work with engineering teams to design, develop, deliver, and maintain IT products and services. This will typically be for a project or a strand of a programme.

You will leverage your deep knowledge and expertise to grow the technical architecture community, supporting the creation of high-quality products and services.

In this role, you will blend technical knowledge, architectural expertise, and development skills. You will also bring a breadth of understanding across various technical domains, with a depth of experience in at least one domain or specialism.

As a Senior Technical Architect your main responsibilities will be to:
. Lead, deliver, and support the technical design of products or shared platforms to meet user needs and business objectives.
. Ensure high-quality technical design that adheres to enterprise architecture principles and roadmaps.
. Collaborate with digital professionals in agile delivery teams to create value-for-money (VFM) solution designs that meet user needs.
. Contribute to the development of the DWP Architecture practice by sharing best practices and reference architectures, ensuring consistency across DWP.
. Engage with Enterprise Architects, Domain Architects, Lead Solution Architects, and engineering teams to implement solutions aligned with approved architecture designs.
. Deliver product solutions and take accountability for product architecture, ensuring alignment with engineering efforts.
. Identify, capture, share, and iterate on architecture patterns to maintain consistent and coherent architecture design, contributing to the Enterprise Architecture.
. Implement architecture patterns and create reference architectures as real-world examples of successful design.
. Provide solution options and recommendations during project discovery and inception phases to guide decision-making on the best solution designs.
. Make technology choices for products in line with the enterprise architecture blueprint, and contribute to technology policy updates where necessary.
. Foster an inclusive digital culture within the department.

Essential:
. Cloud Expertise (AWS Focused) - Extensive experience with AWS technologies, cloud hosting, and networking design patterns.
. Familiarity with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Serverless, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud-based application deployment technologies.
. Agile/DevOps Methodologies - Strong understanding of Agile and DevOps practices, including Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) processes.
. Architecture & Design - Expertise in designing microservice and API-led architectures, as well as integration design techniques.
. Proficient in architecture and design methods using ArchiMate and UML.
. Collaboration & Communication - Ability to communicate effectively between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
. Skilled in working with and influencing senior stakeholders to align on technology and business needs.
. Systems Design - Ability to design systems of medium complexity and risk, ensuring appropriate technology selection and system integration.
. Experience reviewing and guiding system designs developed by other teams.
. Prototyping & Solution Design - Knowledge of prototyping and iterative solution design, including selecting and using various methods for testing and validation.
. Security Architecture - Familiarity with cybersecurity tools and best practices, including secure communication, encryption, and Single Sign-On (SSO) technologies.

Desirable:
. Public Sector Experience - Proven experience working in government or public sector environments.
. Familiarity with other cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure is desirable.
. Knowledge of Apache Kafka (beneficial) and MongoDB.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply.

Armed Forces Commitment

DWP guarantees to interview veterans or spouses/partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates/military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".