VP Platform - Engineering & Architecture in Birmingham

Join OneAdvanced

Mandate: To architect and engineer OneAdvanced's AI-native platform blueprint, unifying enterprise architecture with IQ platform delivery to drive a 6x delivery performance multiplier, accelerate Time to First Value (TTFV), deploy scalable, secure and resilient IQ platform services and maximise enterprise value at exit through COGS efficiency, technical debt rationalisation, and seamless M&A integration.

Position Overview

The VP Platform Architecture & Engineering is the organisation's lead Architect and engine room of technical velocity, tasked with bridging high-level investment objectives with high-velocity technical execution. You are the technical visionary and delivery owner responsible for migrating the portfolio from traditional "systems-of-record" to an AI-native, platform-driven architecture, and for building the "OneStack" Agentic SDLC and Platform-as-a-Product capability that brings that architecture to life.

Unlike traditional architects or platform leaders, your remit spans both strategic evolution and hands-on delivery: you provide the blueprints and guardrails, and you build the platform fabric, self-service products and Golden Paths that empower product engineering to ship at world-class velocity (6x acceleration). You are the primary authority for ensuring the target-state architecture and platform unlock intelligent services and customer value, while maintaining rigorous compliance with UK/EU ISO (27001/42001) and GDPR. You partner closely with the VP Global Reliability & Technology Operations, who owns the operational running, resilience and 24/7 stability of the live platform, to ensure what you architect and build is secure and resilient by design.

What You Will Do

• Architecture Strategy & Blueprinting
  • Target Architecture: Define and execute the transition to an AI-first blueprint where agentic AI is embedded into the core "systems of work", transforming how customers interact with the platform. Ensure infrastructure (hybrid cloud), security, data, platform and product architectures are coherent, aligned and fit for purpose given the company strategy.
  • 6x Delivery Performance: Architect application frameworks and patterns (e.g., modularity, high cohesion, spec-first API design) that enable a 6x improvement in product development cycles through agentic AI workflows.
  • Commercial Delivery Support: Partner with product engineering to ensure the drive for "speed-to-market" is balanced with the disciplined evolution toward the platform-native target state defined in the technology strategy.
  • Technical Debt Rationalisation: Own the product and platform technical debt inventory and modernisation roadmap, using the "5Rs" framework (Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, Rewrite, Replace) to maximise EBITDA impact.
• Platform Services Delivery & Growth Acceleration
  • Platform-as-a-Product: Design, build and deploy the engineering roadmap for the core platform fabric and the suite of self-service platform products that abstract complexity and allow sector-focused teams to innovate without technical friction.
  • Time to First Value (TTFV): Partner with Services and Support organisations to build automated provisioning and "graduation" services, ensuring the transition from heritage products to platform-native services is seamless, fast, and designed to enrol revenue instantly.
  • COGS & Scale Efficiency: Architect and advocate for platform services that drive tangible COGS efficiency, ensuring that as OneAdvanced scales globally, platform unit costs decrease through extreme automation and architectural optimisation.
• Intelligent Data Architecture & Regulatory Sovereignty
  • Data Strategy for Innovation: Accountable for the enterprise Data Architecture, designing unified infrastructures that unlock AI-native services, behavioural intelligence, and cross-functional orchestration at scale.
  • EU/UK Regulatory Compliance: Architect data flows and storage patterns to ensure absolute compliance with UK/EU GDPR and ISO 27001/9001/42001 (AI Management) standards.
  • Privacy by Design: Embed automated PII redaction and privilege guardrails directly into the data services and AI model gateways.
  • Compliance Orchestration: Implement "Compliance-in-Code", programmatically enforcing UK/EU GDPR and ISO 27001/42001 standards within the delivery pipeline, so product teams are compliant by default through automated security posture management and real-time governance gates.
• OneStack Agentic SDLC & Engineering Acceleration
  • Agentic Engineering: Deliver the "OneStack" Agentic SDLC, leveraging AI agents to automate the toil of testing, deployment, and remediation, and architect the integration of autonomous agents so that architectural and quality guardrails are in place, while DevEx leads the rollout.
  • 6x Performance Multiplier: Evolve the engineering community's capabilities to ensure the SDLC transformation unlocks a 6x improvement in performance and quality across all R&D hubs.
  • Role-Modelling Quality: Use the platform engineering and architecture team as the enterprise benchmark for engineering excellence, demonstrating the power of agentic workflows in high-stakes environments.
  • Zero-Ops by Design: Design platform services to be self-healing and autonomous by default, eliminating manual intervention through policy-driven AI orchestration and building the foundational guardrails that guarantee the security, lineage and integrity of data used within AI-native services and agentic workflows.
• Federated Architectural Leadership & Coaching
  • Principal Architect Development: Functionally lead, coach and mentor the Principal