Cloud Architect

AXA UK plc; Redhill; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading insurance company in Redhill is seeking a strategic leader for their Cloud Platform Engineering teams. This role requires significant experience in Cloud platforms and Platform Engineering principles, with responsibilities including developing strategic directions, collaborating with stakeholders, and building engaged teams. The successful candidate will drive innovation and ensure seamless technical transition in the Azure domain. Competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package are included.

Benefits

Competitive annual salary

Annual company & performance-based bonus

Contributory pension scheme

Life Assurance

28 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays

Opportunity to buy/sell up to 5 days leave

Wellbeing services & resources

AXA employee discounts

Qualifications

• Experience working with, designing and implementing Cloud Platforms in enterprise environments.
• Thorough understanding of Platform Engineering principles.
• Proven experience with Azure security models.

Responsibilities

• Responsibility for strategic direction and development of Cloud services.
• Partnering with stakeholders to develop key metrics on Cloud products.
• Building and maintaining a culture of engaged, self-organised teams.

Skills

Cloud Platforms

Platform Engineering principles

Azure security models

Agile frameworks

DevSecOps

Automation-first approaches

Job description

Reporting into the Head of Infrastructure Architecture Guild, you'll provide strategic technical leadership and architectural direction to the Cloud Platform Engineering teams and liaise with different stakeholders and communities to ensure alignment to strategic objectives. You'll lead and develop a high-performing, technical platform capability and be responsible for enabling and developing platform services. You'll act as the highest technical design escalation point in the Azure Cloud Domain. At AXA we work smart, empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team and our customers. You'll work at least two days a week (40%) away from home, moving to three days a week (60%) in the future. Away from home means either attendance at one of our office locations, visiting clients or attending industry events. We're also happy to consider flexible working arrangements, which you can discuss with Talent Acquisition.

What you'll be doing:

• Responsibility for strategic direction and development of Cloud services in AXA UK
• Responsibility for UK Cloud Target, Current and Transition architectures and key contributor to development of multi-year roadmap in collaboration with the senior business and IT stakeholders
• Partnering with stakeholders in AXA Group to develop and maintain key metrics on Group Cloud products and services adoption
• Responsibility for the architecture, enablement standards and technical direction of the Azure Platform Engineering function
• Co-developing the product technical roadmaps; translating platform features into technology solutions using modern, industry best practices
• Working across multi-disciplinary teams of Azure Platform Engineers, Enterprise Architects and DevSecOps Engineers to collaborate on and produce high-quality, innovative and robust cloud solutions for public release, overseeing complicated technical migrations and deployments (enable, service and operational transition)
• Partnering with stakeholders and customers to develop and inform the underlying platform capabilities that will speed up product engineering, such as automation, reuse and consistency across software product lines
• Acting as the highest technical escalation point in the domain and structuring key design decisions to unblock issues
• Encouraging innovation and mitigation of risks at the earliest responsible moment, accepting and learning from low-cost failure
• Building and maintaining a culture of responsible, engaged, self‑organised and self‑managed teams
• Providing technical mentoring support to individuals, obtaining feedback on these individuals, helping to set priorities and career direction, and encouraging continuous improvement

Qualifications and experience:

• Experience working with, designing and implementing Cloud Platforms in enterprise environments
• Thorough understanding of Platform Engineering principles and how to apply them to provide quick, test-driven product engineering services to get products to customers faster
• Proven experience with Azure security models and enterprise integration patterns
• Awareness of market trends in Insurance and the IT industry, especially in Platform Engineering and Cloud
• Ability to manage third party relationships
• Experience in building investment cases and planning multi-year roadmap
• Knowledge of various Agile frameworks and secure software development approaches and techniques (e.g. CI/CD, DevSecOps, SRE and Automation‑first approaches)
• Understanding of Financial Services markets and products desirable

As a precondition of employment for this role, you must be eligible and authorised to work in the United Kingdom.

Benefits:

• Competitive annual salary dependent on experience
• Annual company & performance-based bonus
• Contributory pension scheme (up to 12% employer contributions)
• Life Assurance (up to 10× annual salary)
• 28 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays
• Opportunity to buy up to 5 extra days leave or sell up to 5 days leave
• Wellbeing services & resources
• AXA employee discounts