Lead Engineer & Solution Architect

Responsibilities

Solution architecture & technical direction 

• Define conceptual, logical, application, integration and deployment architectures aligned to business capabilities, functional requirements and non-functional requirements. 

• Own the end-to-end solution design across frontend, backend, integration, data, cloud and AI components, while engaging specialist architects where deeper expertise is required. 

• Evaluate architectural options and trade-offs, recommend a clear direction, and document material decisions through architecture views, decision records and implementation guidance. 

• Decompose solutions into coherent components and services, defining boundaries, interfaces, integration patterns and deployment approaches that teams can implement. 

• Ensure architecture decisions address security, privacy, scalability, resilience, performance, observability, maintainability, operability and cost efficiency. 

• Maintain architecture integrity throughout delivery, adapting the design when requirements, constraints or implementation evidence change. 

Engineering leadership & delivery management 

• Lead multidisciplinary engineering teams through mobilisation, design, build, test, release and transition to operations. 

• Turn the architecture into an actionable engineering plan, including work breakdown, sequencing, dependencies, estimates, technical milestones and delivery risks. 

• Balance hands-on technical involvement with delegation, enabling technical leads and senior engineers to own components and make decisions within agreed guardrails. 

• Monitor engineering progress, quality and technical risk; remove blockers and intervene early where delivery, architecture or capability gaps threaten outcomes. 

• Partner with delivery and product leadership on scope, priorities, capacity and trade-offs, ensuring commitments remain technically credible and achievable. 

• Support team formation, onboarding and capability planning, contributing to recruitment and the effective deployment of engineering talent. 

Engineering excellence & team development 

• Establish and reinforce practical engineering standards for coding, testing, security, accessibility, documentation, source control, CI/CD and operational readiness. 

• Create an environment in which engineers receive clear direction, constructive feedback, coaching and opportunities to grow their technical leadership. 

• Mentor engineers and technical leads, strengthening design thinking, problem solving, ownership and communication across the team. 

• Promote effective peer review, design review and architecture governance proportionate to delivery risk and complexity. 

• Drive continuous improvement using delivery evidence, production insight and team feedback, with a focus on quality, flow, predictability and sustainable ways of working. 

• Encourage reuse through reference implementations, patterns, shared components and engineering accelerators where these provide demonstrable value. 

Technology strategy, cloud & AI-enabled engineering 

• Evaluate and recommend technology stacks, frameworks, platforms and cloud services based on business fit, engineering capability, lifecycle, risk and total cost of ownership. 

• Apply appropriate modern architecture patterns, including API-first, event-driven, domain-oriented, serverless and microservices approaches, without treating any pattern as the default. 

• Guide cloud-native and hybrid solution design in line with reliability, security, FinOps and operational excellence principles. 

• Identify opportunities to use generative AI within solutions and engineering workflows where it creates measurable value. 

• Establish practical guardrails for AI-assisted architecture, development, testing, documentation and operations, maintaining traceability, governance and human oversight. 

• Contribute to technology modernisation, platform engineering and engineering productivity initiatives. 

Stakeholder, governance & commercial contribution 

• Work closely with clients, product owners, delivery managers, security, operations and engineering stakeholders to align solution decisions with outcomes and constraints. 

• Communicate architecture and engineering decisions clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, including implications, risks and recommended actions. 

• Lead technical design workshops, architecture reviews and engineering deep dives, ensuring decisions are understood and followed through. 

• Contribute to pursuits, proposals, discovery, solution shaping, estimation, delivery planning and technical due diligence. 

• Provide transparent reporting on technical progress, architecture decisions, engineering health, dependencies and risks. 

To qualify for the role, you must have

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant responsibility for enterprise-scale solution delivery. 

• Demonstrated experience leading and developing multidisciplinary engineering teams, either as an Engineering Manager, Technical Lead or equivalent. 

• Proven experience defining solution architectures from concept through implementation and operational transition. 

• Strong engineering depth across frontend, backend, integration and cloud platforms, with the judgement to engage specialists when required. 

• Experience planning and governing complex technical delivery, including estimation, dependencies, quality, risk and stakeholder management. 

• Experience designing and delivering secure, resilient cloud-native applications and selecting technology stacks for varied solution contexts. 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Ideally, you’ll also have

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

• A recognised architecture certification, such as TOGAF or equivalent. 

• A cloud solution or platform architecture certification. 

• Relevant training or certification in AI-enabled or AI-native solution architecture.

Skills and attributes for success

The successful candidate will demonstrate ability to:

• Make sound technology and architecture decisions aligned to business outcomes.

• Establish clear engineering direction for delivery teams.

• Deliver secure, resilient, cloud-native, and AI-native architectures.

• Accelerate engineering productivity through standards, patterns, and reusable assets.

• Communicate effectively and with impact. 

• Expertise and competencies in:

• Systems Thinking

• Architecture & Design

• Technical Leadership

• Strategic Thinking

• Solution Evaluation & Trade-off Analysis

• Decision Making Under Ambiguity

• Cloud-Native Architecture

• Modern Engineering Practices

• AI-Enabled Engineering & SDLC

• Stakeholder Management

• Coaching & Mentoring