Hiring: Solution Architect

Join to apply for the Solution Architect role at Greencore. We are a leading manufacturer of convenience food in the UK and our purpose is to make everyday taste better. We supply all of the major supermarkets in the UK, as well as convenience and travel retail outlets, discounters, coffee shops, foodservice and other retailers. We have strong market positions in a range of categories including sandwiches, salads, sushi, chilled snacking, chilled ready meals, chilled soups and sauces, chilled quiche, ambient sauces and pickles, and frozen Yorkshire puddings.

Over time processes have become increasingly complex, increasing both the risk and cost they pose, whilst restricting our agility. At the same time, our customers and the market expect more from us than ever before. Making Business Easier forms a fundamental foundation for our commercial and operational excellence agendas, whilst supporting managing our cost base effectively in the future. The MBE Programme will streamline and simplify core processes, provide easier access to quality business data and will invest in the right technology to enable these processes.

The MBE Programme presents a huge opportunity for colleagues across the technology function to play a central role in the design, shape, delivery and execution of an enterprise wide digital transformation programme. The complexity of the initiative, within a FTSE 250 business, will allow for large-scale problem solving, group wide impact assessment and supporting the delivery of an enablement project to future proof the business. You will have the opportunity to work with colleagues across the business and bring a best practice approach to the function.

As a Solutions Architect at Greencore, you will be providing architectural guidance, direction, design, and governance to both internal and external partners across a range of applications and technologies. You will be:

• Defining the future state for applications and infrastructure delivering business outcomes and capabilities.
• Producing capability roadmaps and supporting documentation to define how we will get to future state.
• Owning the production and quality of High-Level Design documents (HLD) that identify the solution and all aspects of the solution including support, disaster recovery and any licensing considerations.
• Working with business stakeholders to design solutions that satisfy the requirements of the business, taking into consideration the full lifecycle, including strategic direction, TCO and supportability.
• Delivering designs that provide appropriate levels of security, resilience and recovery capabilities.
• Identifying and monitoring new trends and directions in IT and industry that could bring benefit to Greencore and presenting these back to the team.
• Working closely with delivery teams, successfully handing over designs, providing guidance and governance to ensure that designs and company standards are followed, with any exceptions recorded and approved as required.
• Involved in driving innovative thinking and assisting colleagues to prototype ideas that can bring real advantage to the business.
• Defining and maintaining technical policies, procedures and standards and providing assurance on adherence.
• Providing technical and financial estimate input into proposal documents.
• Providing technical governance and/or assurance into the delivery and operations functions to ensure designs, policies and procedures are understood and followed.

What we're looking for:

• Ideally educated to Degree level or equivalent, with significant experience across different types of IT projects.
• Experience of working cross functionally and experience of agile project management.
• A minimum of 3 years experience working as an architect at a similar level.
• Supporting business transformation on a significant scale, particularly implementations and/or consolidations of significant applications in an enterprise environment.
• Experience of developing and maintaining enterprise-wide capability maps and specific technology roadmaps.
• Experience of developing complex solution architectures in modern compute paradigms, e.g., combining SaaS, cloud, low-code, data platforms, integration technologies to design solutions.
• Sufficient technical skill to evaluate all aspects of a solution and guide technical teams in their detailed design and delivery processes and operations teams in supportability of new solutions.
• Confident in your ability to make decisions that encompass the entire end-to-end lifecycle of a solution and its application within the organisation.

What you'll get in return:

• Competitive salary and job-related benefits.
• Holidays.
• Car Allowance.
• Annual Target Bonus.
• PSP Target Bonus.
• Pension up to 8% matched.
• Life insurance up to 4x salary.
• PMI Cover.
• Company share save scheme.
• Exclusive Greencore employee discount platform.
• Access to a full Wellbeing Centre platform.