Solution Architect (Data and ML) in London

We all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That's waiting for you at Sainsbury's. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you'll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We've made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.

Joining Sainsbury's Tech means becoming part of a leading, multi-channel, multi-brand retailer where you have the opportunity to shape the technology that powers our business. As a Solutions Architect, you will play a vital role in defining the technical roadmap for your area of responsibility, collaborating with engineering teams to design innovative products and services. We foster an agile and empowered work culture that encourages collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning. As part of our inclusive and diverse team, you will have the chance to influence the overall technical architecture, contribute to cloud-native designs, and drive the adoption of cutting-edge technology principles. Join us to make a purposeful contribution, be part of a dynamic and inclusive environment, and embrace the exciting challenges of transforming the retail industry.

As a Solutions Architect at Sainsbury's, you will guide the design and delivery of our innovative Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning platform, collaborating with a multi-disciplinary engineering team to ensure robust, scalable, and effective solutions.

What you'll do:

• Play a crucial role in planning and defining the technical roadmap for your responsible capability areas.
• Architect robust, scalable, and secure ML solutions, balancing build versus buy decisions to maximise business value and ensure cost-effectiveness.
• Define and champion the technical vision and best practices for AI & ML Engineering across Sainsbury's Tech, sharing expertise and promoting collaboration within the architecture community of practice.
• Shape and design new products and services that align with the overall architecture.
• Create cloud-native designs for complex projects, along with evolution of Sainsbury's ML Ops platform on Microsoft Azure, supporting the entire machine learning lifecycle from data sourcing and feature engineering through to model training, deployment, and real-time serving.
• Collaborate with Senior Engineering Managers to develop and communicate the technical architecture, roadmap, and strategy for your areas of responsibility.
• Influence teams within your domain to prioritise and build components that add the most value, while also driving the adoption of technology principles across your areas of responsibility.
• Share your expertise, contribute innovative design ideas, and promote collaboration and innovation across teams.

Success in this role requires a deep understanding of the technology landscape, staying informed about industry and retail developments, applying modern engineering techniques and cloud-native design principles, building trust and credibility, and delivering results with a focus on problem-solving and collaboration.

Who you are:

• A passionate and experienced Solutions Architect with a deep understanding of the role AI & ML plays in retail success.
• A strategic technical expert with hands-on experience in ML Engineering & DevOps, delivering and operating large-scale platforms.
• Skilled in cloud architecture (Azure or AWS a plus), data pipelines, stream processing, and real-time analytics.
• A champion of modern engineering practices, bringing cutting-edge tools and methodologies to improve team efficiency and innovation.
• You possess a comprehensive understanding of the technology landscape and stay updated on the latest developments in architecture frameworks and modern engineering practices, particularly in the context of cloud-native design.
• With your strong influencing and communication skills, you are able to collaborate effectively with multiple stakeholders, including product managers and engineering teams, to shape and deliver innovative solutions that align with the overall architectural vision.
• Your ability to think holistically and consider multiple viewpoints allows you to come up with creative solutions to complex technical problems.
• As a driven individual, you constantly strive for self-improvement and actively contribute to the inclusive and diverse culture of Sainsbury's Tech.

Essential Criteria:

• Translating enterprise reference architectures into concrete designs to deliver in Azure at scale.
• Demonstrable experience delivering at least one data/analytics (Ideally ML) solution on Azure in an enterprise environment.
• Experienced designing secure Azure solutions.
• Experience designing monitoring and observability for distributed systems on Azure.

Nice to have:

• Experience with Azure Machine Learning or equivalent ML platforms.
• Exposure to GenAI / Azure AI / Azure OpenAI or similar LLM platforms, including safe serving and cost/latency considerations.

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you'll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there's always the chance to try something new - whether that's as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we'll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

• Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury's every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day.
• We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
• Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to 10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers.
• And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
• Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks pay for paternity leave.