Location
London

Hours
Full Time

Salary
£90,000 - £115,000

About the Role
Zaizi is seeking an experienced Solution Architect to lead the design and delivery of mission-critical digital services supporting the UK's Public Safety sector. This role offers the opportunity to work in a highly impactful area of digital transformation, partnering closely with government operational teams to solve complex, real-world challenges that directly affect frontline services and public outcomes. You will work with modern cloud-native architectures, open source technologies, and Agile and DevSecOps practices to shape scalable, secure, and resilient solutions.
As a trusted technical leader, you will collaborate with multidisciplinary delivery teams, customers, and senior stakeholders to define architectural direction and drive successful delivery. The ideal candidate will have a strong software engineering background with hands-on development experience, enabling pragmatic technical decisions, mentoring engineering teams, and bridging the gap between strategy and implementation.

Role Objectives:
- Lead the architecture and technical design of secure, scalable, cloud-native solutions across multiple programmes.
- Work alongside government operational client teams to understand complex business challenges and translate them into practical, user-centred technical solutions.
- Support Agile delivery teams by providing architectural leadership, promoting engineering best practices, and helping teams adopt emerging technologies.
- Own the resolution of complex, high-risk technical challenges balancing delivery, security, operational resilience, and maintainability.
- Collaborate with technical and business stakeholders to shape solution options, present recommendations, and influence architectural decisions at senior levels.
- Mentor and support other architects and engineers, fostering collaboration, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
- Work across multiple customer engagements ensuring consistency of architectural standards while adapting solutions to client needs.
- Champion modern engineering practices including cloud-native development, automation, DevSecOps, and continuous improvement.
- Build trusted relationships across Zaizi and customers, proactively identifying opportunities to improve digital services and deliver greater value.

SC Clearance
Due to the nature of our work with UK Central Government departments, candidates must have Security Clearance acceptable to our Government customers. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK without sponsorship and have lived in the UK continuously for the last 5+ years.

Experience
- Significant commercial experience in solution architecture and technical design.
- Strong software engineering background with hands-on development experience.
- Proficiency with open source technologies and frameworks.
- Experience with cloud platforms, ideally AWS.
- Knowledge of cloud-native architectures and distributed systems.
- Understanding of security architecture and secure-by-design principles.
- Familiarity with Identity and Access Management (OAuth2, OpenID Connect, IAM).
- Experience with containers and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.
- Skilled in DevOps and DevSecOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code.
- Programming experience in one or more languages such as Golang, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Python.
- Experience working within Agile delivery environments and cross-functional engineering teams.

About you
You combine strategic thinking with deep technical expertise. You are comfortable engaging with senior stakeholders, collaborating with operational teams, and guiding engineers through implementation. You are passionate about delivering technology that makes a real difference, enjoy solving complex technical challenges, and thrive in collaborative, fast-paced environments that encourage innovation and continuous improvement.

Zaizi values diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, individuals with disabilities, neurodivergent individuals, parents, carers, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. If you require any accommodations during the interview process, please let us know.

Qualifications
Relevant qualifications or certifications in software engineering, architecture, cloud technologies, or related fields are desirable but not mandatory. A proven track record of practical architecture and engineering leadership is essential.