Senior Technical Architect at Department for Work & Pensions, Leeds, 12 Months, £Contract Rate

As a Senior Technical Solution Architect, you will be working with engineering teams, be responsible for supporting the design, development, delivery and maintenance of IT products and services. This will typically be for a project or strand of a programme. As a Senior Technical Solution Architect, you will have deep knowledge in your field and help to grow the technical architecture community, helping to support the community and build high quality products and services.

Responsibilities

• Lead, deliver and support technical design of a product or part of a shared platform to meet user needs and business objectives.
• Lead on ensuring high quality of technical design, and adherence to enterprise architecture principles and roadmaps
• Build relationships and work collaboratively with Digital professions in agile delivery teams to create VFM solution designs that meet user needs
• Engage with Enterprise Architects, Domain Architects, Lead Solution Architects and engineering teams to implement the solutions according to agreed and approved architecture designs.
• Deliver product solutions and be accountable for product architecture in alignment with engineering.
• Identify, capture, share and iterate architecture patterns to ensure consistent and coherent architecture design, contributing to the Enterprise Architecture.
• Implement architecture patterns creating reference architectures as real-world working examples of successful architecture design.
• Create solution options and recommendations - during project discovery and inception phases to drive decision making on best solution design.

Technical Skills

• Able to listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders and interpret between them. Capable of proactive and reactive communication.
• Has a deep understanding of the technical concepts required in their role and understands how these fit into the wider technical landscape. Understands the limitations of digital technology.
• Designs systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact and business or technical complexity. Selects appropriate design standards, methods and tools and ensures they are applied effectively. Reviews the systems designs of others to ensure selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology.
• Works with and challenges senior stakeholders. Can prioritise and mitigate constraints, and can turn them into an advantage. Is able to adapt the approach depending on the constraints.
• Sees prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes and testing with others. Establishes design patterns and iterates them. Knows a variety of methods of prototyping and chooses the most appropriate ones. Knows how to version and host a prototype.

Technical Specialisms

Architecture & Design Methods

• Desirable skills to support Technical Breadth and Systems Integration capabilities
• ArchiMate and UML architecture/design and modelling techniques, tools and standards
• Agile / DevOps delivery methodologies and best practice
• Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) delivery methodologies, tools and best practice
• Microservice and API-led architecture and integration design tools, techniques and best practice
• WebServices, SOA, BPEL and ESB architecture and integration design tools, techniques and best practice
• WebServices, SOA, BPEL and ESB architecture and integration design tools, techniques and best practice

Programme & Project Management

• Shaping and supporting technology initiatives, projects, programmes and portfolios

Core Technology Knowledge

• Software architecture, frameworks, technologies, tools and best practice
• Application and integration architecture, frameworks, technologies, tools and best practice
• Software architecture, frameworks, technologies, tools and best practice
• Information and data architecture, frameworks, technologies, tools and best practice
• Cloud and infrastructure architecture, frameworks, technologies, tools and best practice

Cloud & Infrastructure Architecture

• Amazon Web Service (AWS) technologies, cloud hosting and networking design patterns, tools and best practice
• Microsoft Azure technologies, cloud hosting and networking design patterns, tools and best practice
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud-based application deployment technologies, design patterns, tools and best practice
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Serverless cloud-based application deployment technologies, design patterns, tools and best practice
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud-based application deployment technologies, design patterns, tools and best practice

Security Architecture

• Security threat trends, analysis and protection technologies, tools and best practice
• Includes: software exploits/ SQL injection/ cross-site scripting/ remote file inclusion/ stolen credentials/ 'watering hole ' attacks/ DDOS/ malware/ phishing/ ransomware
• Secure communication and encryption/ cryptographic technologies, tools and best practice
• Includes: IPSec/ Kerberos/ TLS/ SSL
• Identification, authentication and Single Sign-On(SSO) technologies, tools and best practice
• Includes: OpenID/ Oauth 2.0/ OIDC/ XACML/ OATH reference architecture/ Kerberos/ SAML/ WS-Security/ RACF
• Cybersecurity technologies, tools and best practice

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant

DWP guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.