Lead Technical Architect; Milton Keynes, ENG, GB, MKAA

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About the Role

The Lead Technical Architect will work with stakeholders across a variety of teams to support projects in the delivery solutions to meet user needs, in line with the University’s Learn and Live strategy. They will contribute to the development of the technology strategy and shape principles and standards in support of it. They will also support other Architects and provide advice to technical teams and projects involved in delivering technology solutions across projects in excess of £1m.

Key Responsibilities

• Report into the Head of Enterprise Architecture, and work with architects across the University.
• Understand the organisation’s people, process, systems and data ecosystem and its interdependencies, including reference architectures.
• Contribute to and evangelise the technology strategy and roadmaps from a business, technology and data perspective, including ‘as is’, ‘to be’ and transitional states.
• Establish & communicate architectural principles, policies and standards.
• Take a strategic view of technology across all architectural domains, portfolios and programmes within the University.
• Support the delivery of cross-cutting capabilities that enable change across the University, engaging with delivery teams.
• Consult and support collaboration across the business in support of how technology is used, guiding the organisation to make appropriate business, technology and data decisions by recommending reuse, sustainability and scalability, to achieve value for money and reduce risk.
• Collaborate and consult with stakeholders to ensure that technology decisions are aligned with University strategy, policies and standards. Support complex technology decision making and the framework which supports it.
• Develop the architecture community, supporting and mentoring other architects.
• Carry out horizon scanning across industry, identifying emerging trends and their potential impact and opportunity for the University.

About You

Essential:

• Proven experience of technical, infrastructure and data architecture and its interrelationships with the organisational landscape and strategy of an organisation.
• An understanding of relationships between organisational structures, processes, technology, people and skills within and outside of an enterprise, to achieve transition to the new state - understanding business drivers, goals and constraints and how they relate to user needs.
• Proven experience in defining principles, patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements. You can effectively focus on outcomes rather than solutions and activities and contribute to a strategic view of a situation. You can develop, maintain or update the technology strategy in response to feedback and findings. Responsible for the integrity of the systems repository and collaborating with teams to maintain this.
• Proven experience in architecting cloud based solutions across a heterogenous estate, supporting teams in selecting components in line with standards and technology strategy and working iteratively. Experience of completing the required solution governance and managing a solution through governance processes to satisfy stakeholder and governance needs and gain agreement.
• Demonstrable skills in communicating effectively across organisational, technical and political boundaries, understanding the context. Excellent communication between technical and non-technical individuals, showcasing the ability to make complex and technical information and language simple and accessible for non-technical audiences. Advocating on behalf of a team and communicating what it does, to create trust and authenticity. Being able to manage difficult conversations or negotiations and share strategies for…