Principal Architect, Cloud-Native Platforms

Oliver Bernard; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Oliver Bernard is seeking a Lead Architect to define and drive the technical direction of a major media organisation's large-scale digital platforms. The role requires influencing engineering teams and creating environments where strong architectural decisions are made at the right level.

You will work across high-traffic web and mobile ecosystems, partnering with Engineering, Product and Delivery leadership to shape scalable, observable systems and modern platforms.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering background required.
• Expertise in modern cloud-native architecture.
• Experience leading multiple engineering teams and setting direction.

Responsibilities

• Set architectural direction across multiple engineering teams.
• Design and evolve large-scale distributed systems.
• Navigate trade-offs around scalability, resilience, coupling, cost and operability.
• Establish architectural principles, patterns, golden paths and sensible defaults.
• Promote lightweight governance with ADRs over heavy processes.
• Guide build vs buy decisions and long-term technology investments.
• Coach Tech Leads and Engineers in architectural thinking.
• Modernise and simplify complex technology platforms.

Skills

Cloud-native

Distributed systems

CI/CD observability

Tech leadership

Evolutionary architecture

Stakeholder influence

Architectural thinking

Job description

Oliver Bernard is seeking a Lead Architect to define and drive the technical direction of a major media organisation's large-scale digital platforms. The role requires influencing engineering teams and creating environments where strong architectural decisions are made at the right level.

You will work across high-traffic web and mobile ecosystems, partnering with Engineering, Product and Delivery leadership to shape scalable, observable systems and modern platforms.