Solutions Architect (Contract) in London

Toyota Connected Europe wants to create a better world through connected mobility for all. We are a new company created to bring big data and a customer focus into all aspects of the mobility experience, so everyone’s experience is more personal, convenient, fun and safe. We create and enable technologies to delight and simplify the lives of everyone who use our products and empower them to think of and use our services in new ways.

You will be joining us at the beginning of Toyota Connected Europe’s journey of building our team and products. We are building teams to inspire, innovate and build technologies and products that are used by millions of people from all walks of life. We want every member of our team to live and breathe the start-up culture of Toyota Connected Europe and feel and act like an owner every day. This is an opportunity to have an immediate impact and voice: what you create today, you will see being used tomorrow.

What is the purpose of the role?

Toyota has a multitude of connected car systems that span several generations of technology. Within this landscape, we need to deliver new products and services, whilst driving down the overall complexity of our systems. At Toyota Connected Europe we are looking for a Solution Architect to join our talented engineering team. Reporting to the Lead Enterprise Architect, you will be responsible for high-stakes technical problem-solving across several initiatives within the driver apps and the data, AI & integration domains.

What you will be responsible for?

• Onboarding the next iteration of in-vehicle device (26DCM / BEV Step 3).
• Design and develop scalable and secure solutions that meet customer needs and business objectives, from inception to production.
• Develop the future roadmap of these solutions, accounting for change and evolution, in line with product roadmaps.
• Work with product owners, enterprise architects, business stakeholders and software engineers to understand and solve difficult technical problems to ensure new functionality services, products are implemented correctly for TCEU and its customers.
• Produce viable solutions, including changes to processes, operating models and other services.
• Develop and maintain documentation; including architecture diagrams, system specifications, interfaces, data models and flows. Document requirements, decisions, and communicate them effectively.
• Collaborate with technical leads, other domain architects and enterprise architecture to ensure software and system designs are implemented efficiently, effectively and with consistency.
• Work to establish standards, policies and practices; following architectural governance and assurance processes internal to TCEU and across Toyota affiliate entities to deliver robust and reusable services and solutions.
• Work with engineering leaders to evaluate new processes and technologies, feeding the findings into the solution practice – supporting enterprise standards to enhance our domain related services.
• Act as a subject matter expert within your domain, supporting new initiatives, in-life systems and pre‑sales activities.

What are we looking for from you?

• Have experience working as a hands‑on solution architect or as a senior software engineer in a large organisation, regularly taking responsibility for difficult technical decisions and seeing them through to completion.
• Ability to deliver, document and articulate complex architectures for the domain at all levels – infrastructure, data, integration, application, security and service.
• Experience of architectural frameworks and tools, such as TOGAF and SOA.
• Have experience of delivering solutions within large-scale programme deliveries.
• Have deep knowledge of software solution architecture concepts, practices and tools.
• Have practical knowledge of cloud design patterns and services.
• Have knowledge of current state-of-the-art for software service development and delivery.
• Able to communicate effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong awareness of cyber-security and information governance; good understanding of privacy by design and security by design principles.
• Experience within the automotive industry and/or IoT a plus for the role.

Now for the less exciting stuff, what are the technical skills we’re looking for?

• Formal architecture documentation and diagramming techniques (e.g. BPMN, Archimate, UML, wireframing, etc.).
• Formal data modelling and design techniques, for relational and NoSQL database technologies.
• At least 5 years’ experience in Java software development, or similar modern enterprise language.
• At least 3 years’ experience working in a container-based and/or serverless environment, hosted on public cloud (AWS EKS and Kubernetes preferred).
• At least 3 years’ experience working with data pipeline technologies, such as Kafka, Flink, AWS SNS/SQS/Kinesis, etc.
• Experience working with front-end frameworks such as Vue.js or React.js, and native app development.
• Solid understanding of CI/CD concepts, including version control, branching models, appropriate quality control techniques, secrets management, and automated deployments.

Another thing we’d like to mention… There’s been a lot of research showing how marginalised groups of people may not apply for jobs unless they meet all of the requirements. We also know that people come from wide and wonderful backgrounds with different experiences - We value people who bring unique perspectives and add new knowledge to our team! You might not feel like you “tick all the boxes” but we sincerely hope you’ll apply anyway because you could be exactly what we’re looking for!