Principle Architect – Architecture Practice

Nixor are proud to be supporting a Leading Financial Services provider at the very start of building out a brand new Architecture practice. They are removing reliance on 3rd parties & bringing all capability in-house, so this is therefore an opportunity to be a senior member of a whole new growing division.

This is a domain specific role, so Financial Services experience is required, but this can be from either Industry side or Consultancy.

As a Lead / Principal Architect, you’ll take technical ownership of a critical business domain. You’ll guide the transition from legacy systems to a modern, cloud-native, microservices architecture, with a specific focus on solutions that serve the business unit you are aligned too.

The Principle Architect is responsible for owning the architecture roadmap end-to-end within their domain — from strategy to implementation. Unlike in some organisations where architects may focus more on governance or high-level oversight, my client expects their architects to be technically involved and closely aligned with delivery teams.

However, this is a Leadership role. You will be managing a team, bringing stakeholders on a journey and owning strategic direction.

• End-to-end ownership of the domain architecture, including technical decisions, roadmap definition, and implementation oversight.
• Hands-on engagement
  , including decisions on infrastructure, patterns, configuration, observability, and cost scaling.
• Stakeholder engagement
  , building relationships that allow delivery teams to interface independently while maintaining architectural integrity.
• Guidance and leadership
  , steering solution direction, ensuring scalability, and aligning designs with strategic goals.
• Prioritisation of tactical vs. strategic work
  , ideally by evaluating trade-offs and alignment with the target state — though not all candidates demonstrated this understanding.

• Be in at the beginning of building a brand new team.
• Huge Impact as you will own the technical landscape for your domain.
• Clear direction, no third-party constraints, and full in-house ownership
• Minimal politics, strong alignment from board to tech team
• Tech-first and user-centric approach from day one

• Proven experience in solutions architecture within a heavily regulated industry.
• A strong track record of modernising legacy systems into scalable, microservices-based platforms
• Deep knowledge of design patterns, cloud-native practices, and architectural governance
• Experience of managing and running a team of Architects.
• Ability to still dig into the technical detail of P1 incidents.

This is your chance to join one of the UK’s most ambitious architecture transformations — with the scale of a large enterprise and the agility of a start-up team.