Principal Cloud Solutions Architect

Northrop Grumman Corporation; Cheltenham; On-site; GBP 83,000 - 126,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in secure cloud solutions seeks a Cloud Architect for its Cheltenham location. The role involves delivering architectural expertise, mentoring junior engineers, and driving innovation in cloud systems. Candidates must hold top-level UK Government clearance and have extensive experience with AWS and IT Systems. Flexible working arrangements and professional development opportunities are offered.

Benefits

Flexible working schedules

Healthcare

Dental

Life Assurance

Pension

Career Development

Employee Incentive Programme

Qualifications

• Experience in IT Systems Design, Deployment, Administration.
• Leadership experience in technical roles.
• Experience with AWS services and cloud computing.

Responsibilities

• Elicit requirements, guide junior engineers on documentation.
• Produce System Design Documents, High and Low Level Designs.
• Implement complex technical solutions and oversee quality assurance.

Skills

AWS

Infrastructure as Code

Cloud Computing

Linux

Windows Administration

Networking

DevOps

Education

AWS Certified Solutions Architect

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Ansible

Jira

Confluence

Job description

UK CITIZENSHIP REQUIRED FOR THIS POSITION: Yes

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: No relocation assistance available CLEARANCE TYPE: UK-Highest Level of Government Clearance TRAVEL: Yes, 10% of the Time

Salary: £83,600 - £125,400

Your Opportunity to Define Possible. Our Opportunity to Deliver the Nation’s Security. Together

Role clearance type:You must currently hold the highest level of UK Government clearance

Location: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

About Your Opportunity:

As a critical part of Secure Cloud Solutions, we support our customers in their journey to refactor, replatform and rehost their mission critical systems into AWS.

Leading or working as an architect within a project team, you will be expected to deliver high levels of agile architecture expertise. This includes looking to expand your own skillset and proficiency into relevant technologies and following through by delivering good quality documentation and solutions to the customer. You will also be expected to share this knowledge through coaching and mentoring more junior engineers, running demonstrations or training sessions for other engineers and documenting your own experiences within internal Knowledge Base articles or through the various Northrop Grumman Centres of Excellence.

We deliver mission value by transforming our customers systems, improving reliability, reducing costs and enabling organisational agility by utilising Infrastructure as Code and DevSecOps techniques.

Your Benefits:

• Flexible working schedules - we offer flexible and hybrid working arrangements. Talk to us at the application stage about any scheduling preferences you may have.
• Flexible Benefits Package – choose which NGUKL benefits you want to satisfy your personal needs. Core Benefits provided for you are Healthcare, Dental, Life Assurance and Pension. Benefits you can flex include Critical Illness Cover, Health Cash Plan, and Health Assessments.
• Employee Incentive Programme – exceptional performance is recognised through our annual incentive programme which is awarded to top performers who excel
• Career Development – opportunity for ongoing professional development and career growth opportunities

Your Responsibilities:

• Work with senior engineers and Stakeholders to elicit both Functional and Non-Functional Requirements, guiding more junior engineers through the process to document, estimate and prioritise customer requirement sets;
• Work with senior engineers and Stakeholders to produce System Design Documents, such as both High and Low Level Designs and Operational Concept Descriptions;
• Take responsibility for the implementation of large scale or complex technical solutions, working in multidiscipline teams to ensure appropriate levels of documentation and testing are undertaken prior to completion of any tasking. Coaching and mentoring more junior engineers in the tools, techniques and procedures being used to complete the task, Documenting and contributing these to the Knowledge Base or NG Centre of Excellence; Set
• Set technical direction and standards for Quality Assurance across their own project, using standardised approaches as guided by Stakeholders or Technical Leadership. Undertake review of other engineer’s work, ensuring work is of good quality and aligns to the standards set by the project;
• Take responsibility for ensuring both your own and the teams tasking are completed on schedule and within budget. Working with Project Management and Customer Stakeholders to prioritise deliverables against financial limits (DevFinOps);
• Take responsibility for the production of high quality User Centric Documentation, such as Concept of Operations (CONOPS), Security Operating Procedures (SyOPs), Support Guides and User Guides;
• Lead the investigation of complex issues, problems and defects, reporting to the Tasking Manager to ensure relevant oversight before undertaking bug fixes;

Your Experience:

• Experience working within IT Systems Design, Deployment and Administration, with recent roles in Technical or Team Leadership positions;
• Certified to Professional level as anAWS Certified Solutions Architect, with additional relevant certifications in specialist areas
• Demonstrable experience of designing, deploying and administering cloud based solutions acrossAmazon Web Service
• Extensive experience of administration of Linux or Windows Operating Systems within large corporate environments,
• Extensive experience of designing, deploying and troubleshooting IPv4 Networking
• Experience Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using AWS CDK, CloudFormation or Terraform
• Experience of administering Virtualised or Containerised systems in Docker / Kubernetes
• Experience of working within complex or high security environments

In addition the following skills are highly desirable

• Experience of implementing Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines as part of DevOps deliveries
• Experience of DevOps working practices, such as Git Branching and release schedules
• Experience of secure network architecture design and of configuring IPv4 routers and firewalls
• Experience of administration of Linux Operating Systems or Windows Servers within large corporate environments
• Experience of using centralised configuration management services such as Ansible or Puppet
• Experience of using agile collaboration tooling, such as Jira and Confluence;
• Experience of using Agile Delivery methodologies such as Scrum or SAFE
• Knowledge of ITIL based Service Management delivery

Your Future Team:

’A challenge a day’ is probably the simplest way to summarise an Architects role in Northrop Grumman. Flexibility and adaptability are key attributes that you will need, being able to quickly adapt to new technologies, integrate them with existing services and bring new and novel approaches to our customers. Be inquisitive, always looking to understand the technical landscape whilst developing your skills and experience, ready to innovate and take the lead.

Guy, Principal Cloud Solutions Architect, National Security Solutions @ Northrop Grumman UK

Our focused and flexible team consists of industry leading practitioners in engineering and systems administration across all specialisms and experience, working with multiple customer sets and system classifications, on both public cloud and on premise.

We work collaboratively to deliver innovative solutions to extremely complex problems, providing our team a broad range of experiences from which to develop new skills and learning across the latest Infrastructure as Code and DevSecOps toolsets.

Diversity is at the heart of our success. Our team share experience, knowledge and new thinking gained from a wide range of backgrounds perspective, culture, gender, race, age and many other elements across several industries. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and particularly from communities currently under-represented within our industry. We treat everyone with respect and foster safe and inclusive environments.

About Our Responsibilities:

Our customers operate in unique environments which offer new and exciting challenges every day, cultivating a place where you can learn and thrive, working alongside the best minds in industry. We’ll give you space to develop your career, where your ideas can shape the future of our dynamic business.

We promote collaboration to achieve more than we could imagine, together. And within a respectful and inspirational environment, we value what you say and do.

Northrop Grumman is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce, and encourages individuals from all backgrounds and all abilities to apply and consider becoming a part of our diverse and inclusive workforce.