Technical Architect

Technical Architect

Full-Time 70000 - 90000 £ / year (est.) No home office possible
BigHand Limited

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Design and evolve cloud-native architectures while integrating AI capabilities into our products.
  • Company: Join BigHand, a tech leader empowering legal professionals with innovative solutions.
  • Benefits: Enjoy 25 days holiday, wellness perks, flexible working, and career growth opportunities.
  • Other info: Be part of a diverse team committed to making a positive impact.
  • Why this job: Shape the future of technology in a dynamic environment that values collaboration and innovation.
  • Qualifications: Experience in microservices, cloud platforms, and strong communication skills are essential.

The predicted salary is between 70000 - 90000 £ per year.

About BigHand

BigHand offers technology solutions for busy legal professionals that provide data and insights to increase value and profits. Through our expert knowledge and innovative technology, we enable our customers to achieve enhanced efficiency, better decision-making and harness their competitive edge. We build with tomorrow in mind, transforming ideas into action and empowering our customers to succeed in a world of constant change. We make big happen for our customers. We are a business driven by our values and have these at the centre of everything we do. Our BigHanders are dedicated to building a culture where We Win Together, We Love to Learn, We Do the Right Thing, We Own It and We Find the Fun.

About the role

BigHand has been iteratively building its cloud-native SaaS capabilities in the last few years, and continues to raise the bar — maturing our microservices-based, event-driven architecture, expanding AI across our product portfolio, and building a richer set of shared cross-product platform capabilities that let our product engineering teams move faster and deliver more value. AI is not a future ambition at BigHand — it is already shaping our products and our roadmap is accelerating. Our goal is for every product to be AI-powered, and over the next 12–18 months every product engineering team will be building or integrating AI capabilities. The person joining this role will have a genuine opportunity to shape how we architect and deliver those frontier capabilities at scale. Reporting to the Director of Architecture, you will take ownership of the architecture for one of our products, contribute to our cross-product platform, and own the standards and guardrails that give our product engineering teams the confidence to move fast without compromising on quality or customer outcomes. You will work closely with product teams, product engineering teams, the Architecture team, and our cloud engineering team to deliver architecture that is ambitious in vision and practical in delivery.

What you’ll do

  • Product Architecture: Define, evolve and deliver the architectural roadmap for your product area. Own API contracts, service boundaries, data models and inter-service communication patterns within your product. Use your technical depth to solve the hardest problems from product engineering team.
  • Cross-Product Architecture: Design and guide the build of shared, reusable platform capabilities to reduce duplication and increase engineering leverage across products. Champion our architectural principles: Open Modular Architecture, Data-centric Mindset, Event-Driven & Connected, Security & Privacy by Design. Take new technologies from evaluation to adoption, and empower teams to use them confidently and consistently.
  • Architecture Governance & Standards: Define our architectural governance model for agentic SDLC from the ground up, encoding standards and principles as machine-readable context that agents consume at the start of development, so architectural alignment is built in rather than bolted on. Build the policy-as-code guardrails that agents cannot circumvent, to guarantee that AI-generated software aligned with our principles, quality standards and customer outcomes. Maintain BigHand’s architectural standards as a clear, shared reference for how we build software.

What we’re looking for

Essential: Before you read through the skills below, we aren’t expecting someone to tick every box. If the role excites you and you can bring most of this, we’d encourage you to apply.

  • Strong experience designing microservices and distributed systems — APIs, service boundaries, data models, and deployment patterns.
  • Experience building in cloud providers (Azure/AWS/GCP) — container orchestration (Kubernetes/AKS), managed databases, messaging, and networking.
  • Experience building event-driven architectures — message brokers, event streaming, async patterns and their trade-offs.
  • Experience designing systems where data privacy and auditability are first-class architectural concerns.
  • Strong communication and design skills — able to translate business needs into technical architectures and explain complex trade-offs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Desirable:

  • Experience with .NET Core / C# or Java backend codebases — web APIs, data access patterns, and service composition.
  • Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into product architectures — LLMs, Azure AI services, or similar.
  • Familiarity with any of: Domain-Driven Design, NoSQL databases (e.g. CosmosDB), stream processing, or CQRS/event sourcing patterns.
  • Experience encoding architectural standards as automated, enforceable constraints — policy-as-code tooling that makes compliance verifiable and hard to bypass.

What we offer

  • 25 days holiday (exc. bank holidays) + 3 BigHand days off between Christmas & New Year
  • Various wellbeing benefits including private medical, vision, online wellbeing programs & webinars, access to online therapy and Employee Resource Groups (ERG)
  • Company-wide Wellness day, for our teams all across the globe to switch off and spend the day doing something to nourish their mental health
  • Opportunities to give back with company volunteer events and individual volunteer days
  • Career growth opportunities and study leave allowance
  • Family benefits including enhanced parental leave, secondary caregiver leave and fertility support
  • Financial benefits including pension scheme, life assurance, and salary sacrificing
  • Cycle to Work Scheme and Tech Scheme
  • Growing business with a global presence, flexible working, modern offices, and remote work options

Our DEI Commitment

We welcome the unique value and individuality that you can bring to BigHand. We are an equal opportunity employer and are dedicated to recruiting solely based on capability and potential regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, educational background, national origin, religion, military status or physical ability. Our BigHanders are dedicated to advancing our culture of belonging by embracing differing viewpoints, opinions, thoughts, and ideas.

Technical Architect employer: BigHand Limited

At BigHand, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that fosters a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, and innovation. Our commitment to employee wellbeing is reflected in our generous benefits package, including 25 days of holiday, wellness initiatives, and career growth opportunities, all within a flexible working environment. Join us in our modern offices or work remotely, and be part of a team that values your unique contributions while empowering you to shape the future of technology in the legal sector.
BigHand Limited

Contact Detail:

BigHand Limited Recruiting Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫

We think this is how you could land Technical Architect

✨Tip Number 1

Network like a pro! Reach out to current BigHand employees on LinkedIn, join relevant groups, and attend industry events. Building connections can give us the inside scoop on job openings and help you stand out.

✨Tip Number 2

Prepare for those interviews! Research BigHand’s products and their AI initiatives. We want to see your passion for tech and how you can contribute to our mission of enhancing efficiency and decision-making.

✨Tip Number 3

Show off your skills! If you have a portfolio or projects that demonstrate your experience with microservices or cloud architecture, share them during your interview. We love seeing practical examples of your work!

✨Tip Number 4

Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets noticed. Plus, it shows us you’re genuinely interested in being part of the BigHand family.

We think you need these skills to ace Technical Architect

Microservices Design
Distributed Systems
API Development
Cloud Computing (Azure/AWS/GCP)
Container Orchestration (Kubernetes/AKS)
Event-Driven Architecture
Data Privacy and Auditability
Strong Communication Skills
Technical Architecture Design
.NET Core / C# or Java
AI/ML Integration
Domain-Driven Design
NoSQL Databases
Policy-as-Code Implementation

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show Your Passion: When you're writing your application, let your enthusiasm for the role shine through! We want to see how excited you are about the opportunity to shape architecture and deliver innovative solutions at BigHand.

Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your application to highlight your relevant experience with microservices, cloud providers, and AI integration. We love seeing how your skills align with our needs, so don’t hold back!

Be Clear and Concise: Keep your application straightforward and to the point. Use clear language to explain your technical expertise and how it relates to the role. We appreciate a well-structured application that’s easy to read!

Apply Through Our Website: Don’t forget to submit your application through our website! It’s the best way for us to receive your details and ensures you’re considered for the role. We can’t wait to hear from you!

How to prepare for a job interview at BigHand Limited

✨Know Your Architecture

Before the interview, dive deep into microservices and distributed systems. Be ready to discuss your experience with APIs, service boundaries, and data models. This will show that you understand the core of what BigHand is looking for in a Technical Architect.

✨Showcase Your Cloud Skills

Familiarise yourself with cloud providers like Azure, AWS, or GCP. Be prepared to talk about your experience with container orchestration and managed databases. Highlight any projects where you've built event-driven architectures, as this aligns perfectly with BigHand's goals.

✨Communicate Clearly

Practice explaining complex technical concepts in simple terms. You’ll need to translate business needs into technical solutions, so being able to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders is key. Use examples from your past experiences to illustrate your points.

✨Embrace AI Integration

Since BigHand is focused on integrating AI capabilities, be ready to discuss any relevant experience you have with AI/ML technologies. Whether it's LLMs or Azure AI services, showing your enthusiasm for AI will resonate well with the interviewers.

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