Technical Solutions Architect

In this senior role, you will shape and govern our integration architecture while applying hands-on engineering to turn strategy into practical patterns. You will drive the modernisation of our integration landscape, shifting from point-to-point connections to a governed platform of reusable services, REST APIs, and MCP interfaces on Azure. You’ll collaborate with delivery teams to reduce complexity, increase resilience and maintain live service stability. This is an opportunity to influence architecture at scale and mentor teams within a one-team culture.

• salary up to 80,000
• generous bonus scheme
• benefits
• hybrid working
• minimum 2 days in the office (Tue/Thu)
• travel to Colchester occasionally

• Own and evolve the target architecture, principles and migration roadmap for Integration Services, defining clear business-domain boundaries, service ownership and stable contracts
• Set reusable architectural patterns for APIs, business events, adapters, synchronous and asynchronous communication, versioning and compatibility
• Design Azure integration solutions using API Management, Service Bus, Logic Apps, Functions, App Services, Container Apps or AKS, Key Vault and data services
• Define non-functional and engineering requirements across security, resilience, performance, scalability, observability, supportability, disaster recovery, infrastructure as code, CI/CD and automated testing
• Create safe modernisation and coexistence approaches for legacy and partner platforms, including adapters, cutover, rollback and decommissioning
• Establish secure-by-design standards for identity, authentication, authorisation, secrets and network controls, plus governance for MCP and AI-facing interfaces
• Maintain hands-on credibility through prototypes and spikes to de-risk architecture decisions
• Lead architecture reviews, maintain decisions and reference designs, and mentor developers
• Partner with Enterprise, Data, Security, Cloud Platforms and delivery teams to align with wider strategy and controls
• Provide timely architectural guidance during discovery, refinement and delivery, escalating risks when needed

• Substantial senior software engineering experience with credible solution-architecture accountability in complex production environments
• Recent hands-on C# and .NET credibility, including .NET 10+, ASP.NET Core, Web APIs and production microservices
• Strong domain-driven design, distributed-systems and event-driven architecture practice
• Deep Azure integration and platform knowledge (Service Bus, API Management, Logic Apps, Functions, App Services, Container Apps or AKS, Key Vault, Application Insights, Azure Monitor)
• Practical Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD automation and automated testing strategy
• Secure API and service design using OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT and Microsoft Entra ID
• Ability to balance strategic architecture with delivery pragmatism and incremental migration
• Strong written and visual architecture communication, senior stakeholder influence and constructive challenge across organisational boundaries

• stakeholder influence
• constructive challenge
• collaboration across teams
• Azure integration services
• API Management
• Service Bus