Solution Architect

Company: Shakespeare Martineau
Closing date: 07/03/2024
Term: Permanent
Working hours: Full-time
Team: IT
Location: UK-Wide
The opportunity

An excellent opportunity has arisen to join our Development Team as a Solution Architect, working with a team of highly skilled developers and delivering complex internal system development projects across a variety of products and technologies.

As an experienced Solution Architect, you will lead development projects across predominantly Microsoft C# .Net MVC, SQL Server technologies and Web API’s as well as infrastructure focussed requirements and solutions. Managing the successful delivery of these solutions will require you to plan, coordinate and lead activities across the full delivery lifecycle.

This role offers challenges across a wide variety of projects and responsibilities, including the opportunity to influence the future direction of the Architecture and systems used across the business.

Your key duties will be:

  • defining Solutions Architecture and Design within the firm, and being responsible for the development and ownership (solution delivery) of end to end IT propositions and solutions
  • leading design phases on Business IT programmes, validating requirements and ensuring that all aspects of solution design are within scope, complete, and deliverable
  • having responsibility for the architecture of all solutions delivered to the business, both from internal and external suppliers
  • facilitating the handover from development and pilot into supported production, ensuring that appropriate documentation and support models are in place
  • supporting Business Solutions arising from M&A activities
  • defining and monitoring solutions to ensure benefits are realised
  • having responsibility for leading key strategic changes and influencing the business
  • being a champion for innovation, analysing new technology solutions that could bring significant benefit to the business
  • driving continuous architecture improvement across the business and into the supporting Service Lines, with the objectives of increasing business productivity, efficiency and helping to deliver service improvement at reduced costs

Skills and experience you will have:

  • solid experience in a similar role from either a Solution Architect or Technical Design Authority background is essential; a background in infrastructure is also desirable
  • developing solutions within an Enterprise Architecture Framework – working knowledge of and certification in an EA method, e.g. TOGAF, Zachman
  • leading IT due diligence phases with respects to Infrastructure architectures and solutions
  • a good knowledge and experience of best practice solutions delivery and the associated commercial and business issues
  • a demonstrable track record in the successful design and delivery of complex technical and service solutions
  • working with partners of various sizes and capabilities in order to provide the delivery capability needed to ensure successful business outcomes

Agile working:

We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.

We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.

We have hubs in Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leicester, Lincoln, London, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield.  This role can be predominantly home based with occasional travel into our Birmingham hub, as required. 

About us:

It’s the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special. By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams, together we win.   As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together. We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients. We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!    

We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves, from when and where you work, to how you dress; we focus on outputs.  

Want to find more about our amazing benefits?

Additional information

Please be aware, for some vacancies, where we receive high numbers of applications we may need to bring the close date forward.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found here.

Equal opportunities

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.