Principal Solution Architect

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations. We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations.

In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a One to Watch on the Sunday Times Tech Track. The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.

A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you do not hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. Due to project requirements, at least 12 months Central Government experience in the last 5 years is strongly preferred.

Aker Systems deliver secure cloud hosted solutions into the public and private sectors, we are rapidly expanding and are looking to hire a Solution Architect to support our product delivery. The successful candidate will need to have a good blend of HLD and LLD design experience around Security, Data, Cloud, Service and Solution. You will be seeing designs through from start to finish incorporating everything from technology to solution, assurance, governance, and security (pen testing) - Not from a hands-on perspective but from a design perspective. You will need to be client facing and be able to make complex designs seem simple to customers.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Research and develop high level and detailed solution designs
• Monitor technical deliverables against the designs, manage and report on design divergences
• Contribute to technical Change Requests
• Maintain and monitor solutions against Non-functional requirements, design principles and patterns
• Support solution option analysis and provide architectural recommendations
• Maintain the AsIs design against the build identifying design branches to be included into the core Aker product set
• Capture the technology stack and map to the architecture
• Closely collaborate with and guide the DevOps and application development teams

Core Competencies

• Skilled in designing distributed, event driven systems
• Platform and application development
• Has recently designed services that reside on AWS, Azure, GCP or hybrid environments
• Has the ability to work in and has strong knowledge of agile development and modern CD/CI approaches
• Understands how security design is integrated into the solution design
• Will need extensive experience in:
• Delivery - designing, delivering platforms and managed services at enterprise scale, specifically bespoke software solutions, particularly in streaming and cloud-native solutions
• Data - solving enterprise data and analytics problems using technology
• Cloud - hands-on Public Cloud experience in either AWS/Azure/Google, both their 'services' and 'how' to work in the cloud such as DevOps-centric approach
• Security - having worked in sensitive data environments

Aker Systems Attributes

At Aker we work as a team, we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help out our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion.

In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday (excluding bank holidays), Company Paid Medical Insurance, Life Assurance (4x times basic salary), Pension scheme, Perks at Work, Cycle Scheme, Tech Scheme and Season Ticket Loan. Plus, a list of voluntary benefits including Dental Insurance, Critical illness cover and Virtual GP.

Equal Opportunities

Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.