Solution Architect in London

The solution architect leads architecture activities to develop and manage technology solutions, including projects, products, systems, and shared services. They provide technical leadership and oversee analysis and design to ensure solutions meet business needs and comply with governance and standards.

What You'll Do:

• Technical Design & Architecture: Design Solution: Business Context, Component Model, Deployment Model, Security Model, Service Model, Transition & Migration Planning.
• Architecture Blueprints & Standards: Apply enterprise blueprints and standards to guide the design of new applications and govern compliance within the current application landscape. Identify and highlight architectural risks, constraints, assumptions and decisions.
• Integration and Data Architecture: Define and enforce enterprise integration patterns (APIs, Event-Driven, Microservices, SOA) to ensure scalable and secure interoperability between cloud PaaS, SaaS and third-party APIs. Oversee the end-to-end API lifecycle, from design and documentation (OpenAPI/Swagger) to security, versioning, and deprecation. Partner with Data Architecture and Engineering to ensure designs leverage modern storage patterns (Cloud Storage Containers, Data Lakes, Warehouses, Lakehouses) for high-performance analytics and AI/ML.
• Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs): Drive the definition and enforcement of Non-Functional Requirements by designing resilient, high-availability architectures that guarantee business continuity, elastic scalability, and optimal performance. Ensure operational excellence and compliance by embedding deep observability, auditability, and DevOps readiness into the core of every solution design.
• Capability Analysis, Ideation & Estimation: Conduct capability analysis to develop business and technology capability models. Collaborate with Business Analysts, Product Owners, and Delivery Managers to define and validate the current state and business requirements. Verify that a valid business case and formal approval are secured prior to initiating solution design.
• Ideation & Vision: Facilitate ideation and shape the solution vision by demonstrating the "art of the possible" across a broad technology landscape to refine the business brief. Conduct solution options analysis to recommend approaches that align with both the business need and broader digital strategy, strictly adhering to the "Re-use, Extend, Buy, Build" principle.
• Estimation & Planning: Assess technical feasibility and architectural risks early in the lifecycle to inform the roadmap and delivery strategy. Provide horizon-level cost and effort estimates, breaking down high-level scope into order-of-magnitude complexity sizing to facilitate informed "Go/No-Go" decisions.
• Security Architecture & Compliance Requirements: Design robust IAM frameworks that strictly adhere to Zero Trust principles, utilizing RBAC, ACLs, and modern authentication protocols (OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML) to govern internal and external identity lifecycles. Embed end-to-end data security into solution designs, mandating encryption for Data at Rest and In Transit, while enforcing strict data segregation, anonymization, and residency controls to meet regulatory standards. Define mechanisms for Data Retention, Archival, and Destruction (DRAD) to ensure compliance and minimize risk exposure across the data lifecycle. Architect secure, segmented network topologies using VPCs/vNets, Subnets, and Network Security Groups (NSGs). Ensure secure connectivity via Private PaaS endpoints, VPN Gateways, and the implementation of CDNs and Load Balancers for edge protection.
• Discovery & Innovation: Research and analyse emerging digital technology trends to drive innovation and identify opportunities for business value. Provide technical leadership for PoC and prototype initiatives, validating hypotheses before full-scale implementation. Lead the technical evaluation and selection of third-party products and platforms, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and business requirements. Provide architectural guidance during the high-level discovery phase to shape project scope and technical feasibility.
• Technical Governance & Strategy: Actively participate in Design Authority meetings and technical workshops to ensure solution compliance and architectural consistency. Contribute to Product Roadmaps from a technology perspective, ensuring future capabilities are planned for and aligned with IT strategy. Create and maintain up-to-date architecture documentation in the central repository for both new designs and existing solution assets.
• Delivery Assurance & Leadership: Lead technical implementation teams through detailed design, planning, and estimation, acting as the bridge between strategy and execution. Oversee solution delivery to ensure fidelity to the original design, managing architectural changes and blocking issues as they arise. Actively monitor and track technical debt throughout the lifecycle, proposing remediation strategies to maintain system health.

Who You Are:

• A minimum of 5 years' experience as a technically focused Solution Architect.
• Knowledge of formal architecture frameworks and processes (e.g. TOGAF, Agile EA).
• Experience in architecting & integrating cloud-orientated and cloud-native solution architectures, preferably using Microsoft technologies (including Azure Cloud, D365, M365 & Power Platform).
• Experience in designing complex integrations using APIs, pub/sub model, event driven processes, batch, and data streaming (preferably across Azure Cloud and to other SaaS platforms and services).
• Experience in product selection and RFP processes.
• Exposure to multiple, diverse technologies, platforms, and processing environments.
• Good understanding of strategic and new and emerging technology trends, and the practical application of existing, new, and emerging technologies to new and evolving business needs.
• Good understanding of product management, agile principles and development methodologies and capability of supporting agile teams by providing advice and guidance on opportunities, impact, and risks, taking account of technical and architectural debt.
• Knowledge of compliance and regulatory standards.
• Familiarity with information management practices, system development life cycle management, IT services management, ISO27001, agile and lean methodologies, infrastructure and operations, and EA and ITIL frameworks.
• Hands-on experience with basic graphical modelling approaches, tools, and EA model repositories.
• Experience of packaged/SaaS/Cloud deployments and integration with other SaaS/Cloud solutions and serverless Azure PaaS.
• Familiarity with designing AI and Machine Learning solutions using structured and unstructured data pipelines and agents.

Useful Experience:

• Working in a relevant industry (insurance, security, defence, consulting).
• Developing architecture blueprints, strategies, and roadmaps (preferably Azure Cloud).
• Delivering presentations to senior-level executives and technical audiences.
• Experience as a senior software engineer / developer.

Required:

• Minimum bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, engineering, systems analysis, or related study, or equivalent experience.
• Formal technical accreditation (e.g. Microsoft Certified Azure Developer, Solutions Architect).

What We Offer:

Control Risks offers a competitively positioned compensation and benefits package that is transparent and summarised in the full job offer. We operate a discretionary global bonus scheme that incentivises, and rewards individuals based on company and individual performance. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join us and are fully committed to equal treatment, free from discrimination, of all candidates throughout our recruitment process. Control Risks is committed to a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age or veteran status. If you require any reasonable adjustments to be made in order to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know and we will be happy to accommodate your needs.