Solution Architect II

About the role

As Solution Architect in the Intelligent Automation Centre, you will lead technical strategy and serve as the design authority for the team's automation capabilities. Treating the automation platform as a product, you will set its roadmap, define its architecture and measurable non-functional requirements, and ensure it enables scalable solutions, maintains robust security, and meets compliance obligations. You will lead modernization and migration initiatives, set technical standards, and act as a senior technical partner to delivery squads, enterprise infrastructure groups and external delivery partners - all within an Agile delivery model.

Note: This is an individual-contributor role focused on technical leadership and platform delivery ownership, not people management.

Key responsibilities

Platform strategy, architecture & SDLC

• Own platform architecture, reference patterns and the platform roadmap (cloud migrations, upgrades, new capabilities, and DevSecOps improvements).
• Evaluate, prioritize and introduce new platform capabilities in a vendor-neutral way (for example: test-management/test-automation capabilities, advanced orchestration or document ingestion/processing capabilities), and operationalize them end-to-end.
• For platform components, define the platform-specific artefacts and measurable acceptance criteria required at each SDLC gate provide architecture and governance signoffs and ensure platform releases are production-ready and audit-ready.
• Accountability boundary: own platform architecture, NFR sign-off and roadmap delivery execution (sprint delivery / feature build) is owned by delivery squads and third-party partners - you provide technical authority, design assurance and gate approvals.

Platform engineering & operations

• Lead platform migrations, upgrades and decommissioning with minimal business impact (infrastructure, runtime, framework and package updates).
• Provide L3 technical leadership across non-production and production environments, guide troubleshooting for complex incidents and systemic issues.
• Define and own platform SLI/SLOs and observability standards (logs, metrics, alerts, dashboards). Own license and capacity management and drive runtime scalability, resilience and cost optimization.

Governance, risk & vendor escalation

• Embed security, identity & access management (IAM), data protection, audit and change-management requirements into architecture, pipelines and operating procedures.
• Own the team's Digital Governance Framework (DGF) requirements: prepare and maintain DGF submissions, ensure gate readiness, liaise with the DGF authority, and secure approvals for introductions of new technologies or tools.
• Participate in or chair architecture, risk and change forums to ensure decisions are documented and audit ready.
• Chair technical vendor escalations for platform incidents and own remediation plans where platform components are responsible.

Collaboration & stakeholder management

• Collaborate with delivery squads, product owners, enterprise infrastructure teams and external partners to ensure platform capabilities meet current and future needs.
• Contribute to vendor governance for platform services (periodic service reviews and regular business reviews, performance assessments, issue escalation and roadmap alignment).
• Communicate complex technical topics and trade-offs in clear, outcome-focused language to senior stakeholders.

Enablement & continuous improvement

• Enable advanced users through standards, documentation and onboarding promote reuse (frameworks, components, artefacts) and uplift developer experience.
• Operationalize introduced capabilities (e.g., test-management/test-automation) by defining standards, guardrails, deployment pipelines and runbooks so teams can adopt them safely and consistently.
• Use operational and platform data to identify improvement opportunities and systematically uplift platform stability and developer productivity.

What success looks like

• Roadmap milestones for migrations and capability introductions delivered with minimal production disruption.
• Demonstrable SLI/SLO compliance and measurable improvements in stability, observability and cost-efficiency.
• Timely gate approvals, strong alignment with delivery teams and external partners, and effective vendor remediation.
• New platform capabilities adopted successfully with clear standards, pipelines and runbooks, and measurable uplift in developer experience.

About you

Mandatory:

• 8-10 years of professional experience, including 3-5+ years in platform engineering, solution architecture or automation-platform ownership in complex enterprise environments.
• Proven track record leading platform modernization, migration and optimization initiatives (on-prem cloud/SaaS, runtime and framework upgrades).
• Strong understanding of leading automation platforms and integration patterns, with the ability to review and challenge solution designs and non-functional requirements.
• Solid knowledge of enterprise IT environments: cloud / virtualized infrastructure, IAM, networking fundamentals, CI/CD and DevOps practices, monitoring and logging.
• Demonstrated experience in technical troubleshooting and incident / problem management across dev, test and production.
• Practical experience enforcing SDLC discipline in Agile delivery models and owning architecture / governance signoffs.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills able to influence across business, platform, technology and vendor teams without direct line authority.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience in regulated industries (financial services, insurance, healthcare) or large-scale service operations.
• Certifications: automation platform accreditation (e.g., UiPath), cloud/architecture (AWS/Azure/GCP, TOGAF) or Agile/PM (Scrum Master, SAFe, PMP/PRINCE2).
• Experience enabling advanced users / citizen developers or leading platform enablement initiatives.
• Familiarity with observability tooling, DevSecOps pipelines and scripting/data tools (Python, SQL).

Education & certifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or a related technical discipline. Exceptionally, candidates with other degrees and strong demonstrable experience in platform engineering or solution architecture may be considered.