Enterprise Architect in Stoke-on-Trent

About us

Founded in 2008, CitNOW is an innovative, enterprise-level software product suite that allows automotive dealerships globally to sell more vehicles and parts more profitably. CitNOW’s app-based platform provides a secure, brand-compliant solution – for dealers to build trust, transparency and long-lasting relationships. CitNOW Group was formed in 2021 to unite a portfolio of 12 global software companies leveraging innovation to aid retailers and manufacturers in delivering an outstanding customer experience. We have over 300 employees worldwide who all contribute to our vision to provide market-leading automotive solutions to drive efficiencies, seamlessly transforming every customer moment. The CitNOW Group is no ordinary technology company, we live a series of One Team values and this guiding principle forms the foundation of CitNOW Group’s award winning, collaborative and inclusive culture.

About the role

CitNOW Group has rapidly expanded through multiple acquisitions, creating an exciting ecosystem of platforms, applications and data landscapes. We are seeking an experienced Enterprise Architect to define and implement a group-wide architecture strategy that unifies these systems within a cohesive, scalable and future-ready environment, enabling us to accelerate innovation in a secure and scalable manner. We’re seeking strong expertise in enterprise architecture, with a proven track record in post-merger and acquisition integration. The ideal candidate will have deep knowledge of integration platforms, data architecture and cloud technologies, combined with excellent communication and stakeholder management skills to influence effectively across diverse business units. This role is critical in harmonising technology across acquired entities, ensuring seamless integration, robust data architecture and alignment with our vision for connected automotive dealer platforms.

Key responsibilities include:

• Group-Wide Architecture Strategy
  • Develop and maintain a unified enterprise architecture framework that spans all acquired businesses
  • Define standards and blueprints for integration, data architecture, and core enterprise systems
• Integration & Consolidation
  • Lead the design of integration strategies to connect disparate platforms, applications, and processes across the group and with external third-parties
  • Oversee consolidation of legacy systems while enabling interoperability with modern automotive software solutions
• Data Architecture & Governance
  • Establish a group-wide data architecture to ensure consistency, quality, and accessibility of information
  • Implement governance frameworks for master data management, analytics, and compliance with industry regulations
• Traditional Enterprise Architecture
  • Design and maintain models for business, application, and technology architectures
  • Ensure scalability, security, and resilience across infrastructure and software platforms
• Innovation & Transformation
  • Identify opportunities to leverage emerging technologies (AI/ML, IoT, cloud-native, etc.) across the group
  • Identify and drive modernisation initiatives such as microservices adoption, cloud migration and others.
• Collaboration & Leadership
  • Partner with leaders across acquired entities to align local systems with group-wide standards.
  • Provide mentorship and guidance to architects and technical teams, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation

We’re looking for key skills in the following areas:

• Identity, access and security SAML, Oauth2, JWTs, etc. IDaaS platforms, preferably Keycloak SSO integration patterns
• Identity federation
• Zero-trust principles, RBAC, and the associated audit/governance
• Integration architecture Event-driven architecture patterns (distributed design patterns more generally is an advantage)
• API design, management, and governance
• Extensive experience improving and optimising ETL processes, presumably using IPaaS tooling
• Data architecture Data modelling, cataloguing, and associated governance
• Data lakes, distributed storage
• Metadata management
• Cloud & Platform Architecture Proficient in AWS, but familiarity with Azure/GCP also useful
• Strong understanding of cloud computing principles (and ideally the AWS core services that deliver them)
• IaC literacy (ideally Terraform)
• Software Architecture Microservices, monoliths, hexagonal, etc
• Event sourcing and propagation
• Distributed systems behaviour (and the trade-offs, latency, redundancy, resilience)
• Understanding of scalability, reliability, performance engineering, etc
• Architectural Governance Establishing group architectural patterns without slowing down individual teams or reducing autonomy
• Creation of reference architectures for others to adopt and follow
• Standing up a matrixed group architecture function

In addition to a competitive salary, our benefits package is second to none. Employee wellbeing is at the heart of our people strategy, with a number of innovative wellness initiatives such as flexi-time, where employees can vary their start and finish times within our core business hours and/or extend their lunch break by up to 2 hours per day. Employees also benefit from an additional two half days paid leave per year to focus on their personal wellbeing.

We recognise the development of our people is vital to the ongoing success of the business and proudly promote a culture of continuous learning and improvement, along with opportunities to develop and progress a successful career with us. The CitNOW Group is an equal opportunities employer that celebrates diversity across our international teams. We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace where everyone’s individuality is valued.