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- Tasks: Lead architectural strategy and guide technical direction for digital legal services.
- Company: Join Cognizant, a top global professional services company transforming businesses.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, inclusive culture, and opportunities for continuous learning.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on digital transformation in the legal sector.
- Qualifications: Experience in complex digital environments and strong software engineering skills required.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with excellent career growth and mentorship opportunities.
The predicted salary is between 48000 - 72000 £ per year.
The Ministry of Justice is seeking an experienced Senior Technical Architect to support the Legal Aid Agency on a temporary consultancy engagement. The role provides architectural leadership across digital services that enable both citizens and legal professionals to access and manage legal aid services.
You will work within multidisciplinary delivery teams and act as a senior technical partner, shaping architectural strategy, informing key technology decisions, and ensuring services are secure, scalable and aligned to government digital and technology standards. This position demands a strong blend of technical breadth, stakeholder engagement, and the ability to influence across organizational boundaries.
Role Purpose
The Senior Technical Architect will analyze the Legal Aid Agency's technology landscape, identify opportunities for improvement, and define architectures that support long-term digital transformation. You will collaborate closely with developers, SRE and security specialists, product managers, user researchers, designers, and delivery managers to guide technical direction across multiple service lines.
This role requires clear communication, structured thinking, and the ability to articulate technical concepts to both specialist and non-specialist audiences. You will also support the development of the architecture community, providing guidance, mentorship, and technical leadership across teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Strategic Architecture & Technical Leadership
- Work with the Lead Technical Architect to define and maintain the long-term architectural roadmap for the Legal Aid Agency's digital systems.
- Ensure product and delivery teams follow strategic architectural principles, integration patterns, and technology direction.
- Maintain a holistic view of the end-to-end service ecosystem, identifying technical dependencies, risks, and opportunities for improvement.
- Stakeholder Engagement & Communication
- Explain complex architectural concepts in clear terms to senior stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making.
- Facilitate alignment between technical and business leaders, balancing strategic direction with delivery needs.
- Represent architecture in governance forums, supporting prioritization, risk discussions, and assurance reviews.
- Design, Analysis & Governance
- Create high-quality architectural artefacts including diagrams, data flows, integrations, future-state designs, and migration pathways.
- Evaluate technology options and assess impacts across infrastructure, data, security, and operational areas.
- Contribute to architectural patterns, principles, and standards to support consistency across the digital directorate.
- Technical Oversight & Support
- Provide expert oversight to ensure services are robust, secure, scalable, and maintainable.
- Mentor and coach architects, tech leads, and senior engineers, supporting capability development.
- Assist with recruitment and community-of-practice initiatives within the architecture and engineering functions.
- Culture & Ways of Working
- Promote open dialogue, collaborative problem solving, and continuous learning within the Legal Aid Agency's technical community.
- Champion inclusive working practices and support efforts to grow diversity across engineering roles.
Candidate Requirements
Essential Skills & Experience
- Significant experience as a technical or solution architect in complex digital or enterprise environments.
- Strong software engineering foundation, with practical knowledge of modern application architectures (e.g., microservices, APIs, distributed systems).
- Proven ability to design and document architectures using visual modelling techniques such as C4, UML, and data flow diagrams.
- Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider, ideally AWS, including Infrastructure as Code, platform services, networking, and security controls.
- Deep understanding of secure and resilient system design, including authentication patterns, threat modelling, performance considerations, and observability.
- Familiarity with Ruby, Python, or Java, and modern development practices such as CI/CD, TDD, and containerization.
- Experience guiding technology decisions, evaluating options, and influencing senior stakeholders.
- Strong understanding of data modelling, integration approaches, API design, messaging patterns, and interoperability challenges.
- Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex topics and build consensus across diverse groups.
- Ability to work across the full delivery lifecycle, from discovery through implementation and service transition.
Desirable Skills & Experience
- Experience with enterprise ERP platforms (e.g., Oracle E-Business Suite).
- Knowledge of UK government digital service standards, architecture frameworks, and assurance processes.
- Understanding of Domain-Driven Design or event-driven architectural approaches.
- Exposure to SRE, platform engineering, or infrastructure architecture disciplines.
- Experience contributing to architectural communities of practice or governance forums.
- Prior consultancy experience working across multiple product teams or client environments.
Personal Attributes
- Strong systems thinking and analytical capability, with the ability to understand complex environments quickly.
- Comfortable operating in ambiguous or fast-changing environments while maintaining architectural clarity.
- Collaborative, empathetic, and committed to building trust with stakeholders at all levels.
- Dedicated to continuous learning, technical curiosity, and staying current with emerging technologies.
- Pragmatic and outcome-focused, balancing long-term architectural quality with short-term delivery constraints.
Technical Environment
The assignment covers a diverse mix of modern cloud-native services and legacy enterprise platforms. Exposure to some of the following areas would be beneficial:
- Modern languages and frameworks including Ruby, Java, and Python
- AWS cloud services, Infrastructure as Code, platform as a service tooling
- Engineering practices such as DDD, TDD, CI/CD, automated testing and Git workflows
- Multi-tier platform strategies including centralized data and business logic layers
- Enterprise Oracle software including ERP components
- Mac-based development environments and public GitHub repositories
Our Values
We are committed to a culture built on purpose, transparency, collaboration, and respect. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and support an inclusive environment where people can thrive.
About us:
Cognizant is one of the world's leading professional services companies, transforming clients' business, operating, and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build, and run more innovative and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant (a member of the NASDAQ-100 and one of Forbes World's Best Employers 2025) is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. Learn how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at Cognizant Web Page.
Senior Technical Architect employer: Cognizant
Contact Detail:
Cognizant Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Technical Architect
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to your connections in the industry, attend meetups, and engage in online forums. You never know who might have the inside scoop on job openings or can put in a good word for you.
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for interviews by researching the company and its tech stack. Understand their challenges and think about how your skills as a Senior Technical Architect can help solve them. This will show you're genuinely interested and ready to contribute.
✨Tip Number 3
Practice your communication skills! As a Senior Technical Architect, you'll need to explain complex concepts clearly. Try explaining your past projects to friends or family who aren't in tech to refine your ability to simplify.
✨Tip Number 4
Don't forget to apply through our website! We make it easy for you to showcase your skills and experience. Plus, it helps us keep track of your application and get you in front of the right people faster.
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Technical Architect
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter to highlight your experience as a Senior Technical Architect. Use keywords from the job description to show that you understand what we're looking for.
Showcase Your Technical Skills: Don’t just list your skills; demonstrate them! Include specific examples of projects where you've used modern application architectures or cloud services. We want to see how you’ve applied your knowledge in real-world scenarios.
Communicate Clearly: Remember, we value clear communication. When writing your application, explain complex concepts simply. This will show us that you can articulate technical ideas to both specialists and non-specialists alike.
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way to ensure your application gets into the right hands and shows your enthusiasm for joining our team at StudySmarter!
How to prepare for a job interview at Cognizant
✨Know Your Architecture Inside Out
Make sure you’re well-versed in architectural principles and practices relevant to the role. Brush up on modern application architectures like microservices and APIs, and be ready to discuss how you've applied these in past projects.
✨Communicate Clearly and Confidently
Practice explaining complex technical concepts in simple terms. You’ll need to articulate your ideas to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, so think about how you can break down your experiences into relatable stories.
✨Showcase Your Collaborative Spirit
This role involves working with multidisciplinary teams, so be prepared to share examples of how you’ve successfully collaborated with others. Highlight your experience in mentoring and guiding teams, as well as how you’ve fostered open dialogue in previous roles.
✨Prepare for Scenario-Based Questions
Expect questions that assess your problem-solving skills and ability to navigate ambiguity. Think of specific scenarios where you identified opportunities for improvement or made key technology decisions, and be ready to discuss the outcomes.
