Lead Technical Architect in Manchester

Hippo Digital is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of Public and Private sector clients. We are recruiting for a Lead Technical Architect to support in our mission. We work at the intersection of strategy, design, and technology to solve complex problems and create lasting value. Our collaborative and agile culture empowers our teams to make a genuine impact.

As a Lead Technical Architect, you will be a leader and trusted advisor, responsible for shaping the architectural vision and technical strategy for both our clients and our internal practice. Your scope extends beyond individual projects; you will mentor and guide other architects, help to lead our technical thought leadership, and act as a key contributor to growth. You will influence C-suite level stakeholders, define architectural standards, and help to drive our technical direction in a high-impact, influential capacity.

Our solutions empower our customers to build and support secure, scalable, and well-engineered systems beyond traditional boundaries. We leverage deep data insights and continuous innovation to deliver awesome platforms that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data and digital services. The Lead Technical Architect will be a key player and implementer in this mission.

Your role in a nutshell:

• Help define and evangelise the architectural vision, standards, and best practices across the entire Hippo Digital delivery practice.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders, including C-level executives, to guide their long-term technical strategy and digital transformation initiatives.
• Lead complex and strategic technical engagements, providing architectural oversight and quality assurance.
• Mentor and coach our team of technical architects and senior engineers, helping them grow their skills and impact.
• Drive pre-sales and business development activities, leading the technical response to bids, conducting technical due diligence, and shaping new opportunities.
• Contribute to Hippo Digital's thought leadership through public speaking, writing, and community engagement.
• Act as a technical authority, making and communicating key architectural decisions that impact multiple projects or clients.

About The Candidate:

• Extensive, senior-level experience as a Technical Architect, with a proven track record of leading large-scale digital transformations.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and implementing complex architectures across one or more major public cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP), including proven experience with multi-cloud strategies.
• A deep, strategic understanding of cloud-native technology stacks, with hands-on experience in containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) or serverless deployments and advanced CI/CD tooling (GitLab CI/CD).
• Exceptional skills in Infrastructure-as-Code, with extensive experience using Terraform for complex, repeatable deployments.
• A history of providing technical leadership and mentoring to other architects and engineering teams.
• Proven ability to influence and communicate effectively with C-suite and executive-level stakeholders.
• Experience in a consultancy environment, including contributing to pre-sales, proposals, and business growth.
• Expert-level knowledge of security, networking, and governance principles in a cloud context.

About The Company:

As well as a competitive salary which we’re transparent about from the outset, you can also expect a range of benefits:

• Contributory pension scheme (Hippo 6% with employee contributions of 2%)
• 25 days holiday plus UK public holidays
• Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts
• Critical illness cover
• Life assurance and death in service cover
• Volunteer days
• Cycle-to-work scheme for the avid cyclists
• Salary sacrifice electric vehicles scheme
• Season ticket loans
• Financial and general wellbeing sessions
• Flexible benefits scheme with options of: private health cover, private dental cover, additional company pension contributions, additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days), wellbeing contribution, charity contributions, tree planting

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo:

At Hippo, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We understand that having a diverse team unlocks our capacity for innovation, creativity and problem solving. Only by building a community of diverse perspectives, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds can we create an environment where all can contribute and thrive.

We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process that reflects our workplace culture. We are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant. Hippo continually strives to remove barriers, provide accommodations and offer reasonable adjustments to ensure equity throughout our practices.

Hi, we’re Hippo:

At Hippo, we design with empathy and build for impact. We do this by combining data-informed evidence, human-centred design and software engineering. We’re a digital services partner who is genuinely invested in helping our clients thrive as modern organisations. Our delivery methodology is truly agile, from concept to reality, supporting innovation and continuous improvement to achieve your desired outcomes.

We firmly believe that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. We take a human-centred approach to everything we do because we understand that complex problems require a service design approach. This means understanding how users behave and ensuring our solutions work for them in the real world.

Our combination of data, design, and engineering delivers bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society. We're confident in our abilities, authentic in our approach, and passionate about what we do. If you're looking for a digital services partner that can deliver real results, let us help you build for the future and make a lasting impact.

Hippo locations:

We are headquartered in Leeds and have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We're on the lookout for top talent nationwide but you need to be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices which will be your contracted office location. Given the dynamic nature of a consulting business, you may be required to work on-site at a Hippo office or at an in/out of town client location for a number of days per week (client dependent) and therefore candidates will need to be open/flexible to travel. Plus, we offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8k (please ask for terms and conditions) to help make your move a smooth one.