Principal Solutions Architect

Right now, within government departments and secure facilities around the world, people are making decisions that protect the UK's interests. They're sharing sensitive intelligence, coordinating responses to emerging threats, and collaborating on work that is imperative to UK interests.

They can do this because of Rosa.

Our work is the foundation for what comes next. The government has committed to a programme that will upgrade Rosa to a modern cloud-first platform. But transformation doesn't happen in a vacuum - it happens because the current service is trusted, reliable, and run by people who understand what government actually needs.

We need your help to deliver Rosa brilliantly today. This is how we earn the right to deliver the next generation capability for working at SECRET. Every improvement we make, every incident we resolve, every user we support builds the credibility and capability that makes transformation possible.

We are looking for a motivated Solution Architect to take on the challenge of solving complex problems by designing, modernising and securing services that play a critical role in protecting some of the UK governments most sensitive information.

More than ever, we need to stay ahead of the latest threats, proactively defend our systems and continuously improve our tools, techniques, and processes. And most importantly, we place our users at the heart of everything we do.

Whilst we sit in an established government department, the team structure and ethos are dynamic and agile, more akin to a modern tech start-up. We are pioneering new ways of delivering IT shared services across government, and were having fun doing it.

If you thrive in an exciting and complex environment and can bring experience and ambition to the team, this extremely rewarding role is perfect for you. 

As Principal Solution Architect your main responsibilities will include:

Technical Vision & Strategy: Lead the development of technical vision and strategies for digital and product solutions at Rosa, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and government policy. This includes translating business needs into technical requirements, defining technical architecture, and developing implementation roadmaps.

Solution Design & Development: Oversee the design, development, and integration of digital and product solutions at Rosa, focusing on user experience, security, accessibility, technical debt resolution, and value-for-money. This involves collaborating with stakeholders, recommending technologies, and ensuring solution quality.

Security Governance & Compliance: Ensure adherence to security standards and governance of high classification systems within Rosa's digital solutions. This includes implementing security measures, meeting regulatory requirements, and maintaining the integrity of sensitive data.

Technical Leadership & Collaboration: Lead and mentor technical teams at Rosa, promoting best practices and continuous improvement. This involves guiding architects, building stakeholder relationships, and developing technical talent.

Innovation & Emerging Technologies: Stay updated on emerging technologies and trends, identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and user experience at Rosa. This includes evaluating new technologies, developing proofs of concept, and sharing knowledge.

Communication & Stakeholder Management: Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders at Rosa, ensuring alignment on solution design and implementation. This involves presenting technical information, facilitating discussions, and maintaining documentation.

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

Essential Criteria

• Architecture Leadership: You will have deep experience in working in an architecture function and leading the development of the vision, principles, and strategy for architects for a set of products, projects, and technologies. You will be practised in creating technical standards, blueprints, reference architectures, roadmaps, transition states and target solutions across multiple services.
• Stakeholder Management: You will have proven ability to lead and influence stakeholders across multiple disciplines, crafting and advocating for long-term technical vision aligned with business strategy. This will include experience of interacting with, and influencing, senior stakeholders and a wide range of people across large teams, departments, suppliers, and customers.
• Communicating & Influencing: You will have exceptional communication skills, adept at translating complex technical concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences. Proven ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and build strong relationships with vendors.
• Delivery: You will have practical hands-on experience in technical and solution architecture and design including within programmes, projects, or a product-centric organisation, across agile and waterfall methodologies.
• Secure by Design: Proven track record of incorporating security considerations into all phases of the solution design lifecycle, ensuring compliance with relevant security standards and regulations.
• Making Effective Decisions: You will have strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a demonstrated ability to identify and address technical challenges. You will be passionate about exploring and implementing innovative solutions to meet evolving government needs.
• General Technology Expertise: You will have a good understanding of a broad range of industry-standard technologies, both proprietary and open source, across a diverse range of Microsoft and Linux-based deployments, across physical, virtual, and containerised services.
• Cloud Expertise: Experience designing and implementing cloud solutions across major providers (Azure, AWS, GCP, Oracle) ideally including air-gapped and/or cloud deployments. Expertise in navigating platform-specific features and optimising and automating (IaC) deployments for maximum security, performance, and cost-effectiveness. Strong understanding of cloud governance models and compliance frameworks relevant to government environments.