Technical Architect - MI5 The Security Service - SEO in London

Architecture and technology leadership are crucial to MI5’s ability to move at pace and deliver the strategic technology change we need to stay ahead. We need technology leaders to help set and deliver our ambitious technology strategy. We are moving into a product-centred organisation and, as we evolve in this direction, we need senior technologists to help us develop our capabilities, ensuring we make the best use of recent innovations in technology while also pushing these boundaries further with our internal engineering teams. MI5 makes use of modern approaches and cloud technologies such as AWS and Azure, as well as on-premises platforms and long-established technologies and frameworks.

Due to the nature of our work, most teams are office based. Limited opportunities to work from home may be available, but these are not guaranteed and depend on the business need.

• Lead and manage technical architecture at both the product and product-group level, including the delivery and prototyping of new, secure, scalable, and robust capabilities.
• Own and manage technical risk for the product groups you’re accountable for, while supporting product teams in their technical decisions and designs.
• Set the strategic direction for our products and technologies, guide decisions on the future of products, platforms, or services, and enable the decommissioning of legacy ones.
• Work closely with engineers and senior stakeholders to ensure alignment of vision, act as a force multiplier to increase delivery pace, manage technical and compliance risk, and maintain coherence across the organisation’s wider product landscape.
• Bridge the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders, working with a range of technical specialists, including engineers, product professionals, and senior mission stakeholders, to make decisions on risk and technology strategy.
• Provide appropriate levels of support, leadership and direction to aid the development and growth of others, including coaching and mentoring across the technical community; bring constructive challenge while ensuring guardrails, standards, policies and governance are in place across the delivery lifecycle.

Technical architects tend to be ‘T’-shaped, maintaining broad technical knowledge and one or more in-depth specialisms, which may include software development, data architecture, security, cloud technologies, and others. MI5’s architecture community (guild) designs and delivers real-world architectural solutions to strategic requirements from a range of business areas across the organisation and partner agencies.

We’re looking for passionate technology leaders who are excited to take the initiative, be creative, and drive business change. You’ll have a technical background (e.g., data science, software engineering, or security engineering) and experience leading multiple successful product deliveries using methodologies such as agile throughout the full delivery lifecycle.

You’ll have experience turning business problems into technical designs, including designing complex solutions and evaluating the merits of different technical and commercial options and approaches.

You can lead the development of technology roadmaps with empowered product teams, ensuring delivery meets the needs of the business, and that system architectures are robust, scalable, and secure with appropriate integration points (e.g., APIs) to deliver a high-quality user experience.

You bring experience in guiding and supporting less-experienced colleagues, helping to build capability and foster a collaborative, high-performing environment. We also value continuous learning and good communication skills, as you collaborate, share ideas and experience, and produce high-quality architectural artifacts to support communication.