Technical Architect/Solution Architect in London

Job DescriptionWe're recruiting for an experienced Technical Solution Architect to join our Technology team here at Penguin. This role is offered on a permanent basis with hybrid working from our office in Embassy Gardens, London. You'll work closely with engineering teams to guide this transition incrementally, helping us to reduce complexity, improve resilience and make change easier, whilst ensuring the stability and continuity of our existing live services. It's a role for someone who combines credible architecture expertise with recent, hands-on engineering experience and who enjoys working closely with delivery teams to turn architectural direction into solutions that work in practice. Design Azure integration solutions using services including API Management, Service Bus, Logic Apps, Functions, App Services, Container Apps or AKS, Key Vault and appropriate data services. Define non-functional and engineering requirements across security, resilience, performance, scalability, observability, supportability, disaster recovery, infrastructure as code, CI/CD and automated testing. Establish secure-by-design standards across identity, authentication, authorisation, secrets and network controls, alongside appropriate governance for MCP and other AI-facing interfaces. Maintain hands-on technical credibility through targeted prototypes, proof-of-concepts and technical spikes that help de-risk important architectural decisions. Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Data Architecture, Security, Cloud Platforms and delivery teams to ensure integration designs align with wider organisational strategy and controls. Provide timely architectural guidance during discovery, refinement and delivery, escalating significant enterprise, security, data, commercial or cross-portfolio risks to the appropriate accountable owner. Substantial senior software engineering experience followed by credible solution-architecture accountability in complex production environments. Recent hands-on C# and .NET credibility, including .NET 10+, ASP.NET Core, Web APIs and production microservices. Service Bus, API Management, Logic Apps, Functions, App Services, Container Apps or AKS, Key Vault, Application Insights and Azure Monitor. Practical Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code delivery, CI/CD automation and automated testing strategy. Secure API and service design using OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT and Microsoft Entra ID. SAP, Blue Yonder, BiblioSuite, EDI or broader B2B integration. MCP, AI-agent architectures and governance of AI-facing services. Data modelling, semantic design, event sourcing or operational data ownership within domain services. We would encourage you to apply as soon as possible. AI Here at Penguin, we believe in the power of authenticity and human creativity. This helps us get a true sense of who you are and what you might bring to our team. While we recognise AI tools can be helpful, we recommend using them thoughtfully to ensure your responses reflect you. Disability Confident As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. Salary The salary for this opportunity is up to 80,000 depending on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus a generous bonus scheme and benefits. Hybrid working While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role we expect that you will work from our head office in Embassy Gardens, London a minimum of 2 days per week (Tuesday & Thursday) with additional days for team meetings, townhalls etc as required. There may also be occasional travel to our warehouse site in Frating, Colchester. Additional InformationDisclosure requirements pertaining to the collection of your personal data: Responsible for processing the information provided in your application is the company specified in the job advertisement, with its registered office as indicated. The company processes your data for the purpose of establishing an employment relationship on the basis of Art. The retention period for your data is determined by the statutory time limits applicable in the respective country, beginning upon completion of the recruitment process. You can contact the company's Data Protection Officer at the above-mentioned postal address. Further information on data protection and your rights can be found here.