Senior Technical Architect in Leeds

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 Senior Technical Architect to support 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 Senior Technical Architect at Hippo Digital, you will be a key technical leader, responsible for the design, governance, and delivery of innovative, scalable, and secure technical solutions for our clients. This is a hands-on role where you will be embedded within project teams, leading technical direction and mentoring engineers, while also engaging directly with client stakeholders. You will translate complex business needs into clear, actionable technical blueprints and ensure the successful implementation of the architecture you design.

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 platforms that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data and digital services. The Senior Technical Architect will be a key player in this mission.

• Support the technical design and delivery of solutions on client projects, ensuring they are robust, scalable, and aligned with client business objectives.
• Work hands-on to define and implement architectural patterns, technologies, and practices within project teams.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to senior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of excellence and continuous learning.
• Collaborate with clients to understand their challenges and translate business requirements into technical architecture.
• Ensure solutions adhere to industry best practices in areas such as security, performance, and accessibility.
• Support the development of proposals and bids, articulating our technical approach and expertise to potential clients.
• Represent Hippo Digital's technical excellence in client meetings and workshops.

• Extensive experience as a Technical Architect and Senior Engineer, with a proven track record of designing and delivering complex, modern digital solutions.
• Deep hands-on expertise in one or more public cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP).
• Solid understanding of cloud-native architecture patterns, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI/CD).
• Proficiency in Infrastructure-as-Code principles and tools, with practical experience using Terraform.
• A strong grasp of different architectural styles (e.g., microservices, serverless, event-driven) and the ability to choose the right pattern for the job.
• Demonstrable experience working with stakeholders to define and document technical requirements and solution designs.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• 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

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.

We design with empathy and build for impact. 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 is headquartered in Leeds and has offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. You will be contracted to one of our offices and may be required to work on-site at a Hippo office or at client locations. You should be open to travel. We offer relocation support up to £8k to help make your move easier, terms apply.