Principal Technical Architect

WPP Enterprise Solutions; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

Medical insurance

Pension

Job summary

WPP Enterprise Solutions seeks a Principal Technical Architect to lead cloud architecture for client engagements, focusing on AWS serverless, agentic AI components, and scalable enterprise applications.

You will own technical governance, mentor engineering teams, run workshops with senior stakeholders, and shape durable designs for delivery while championing IaC, CI/CD, and high quality.

Qualifications

• Senior/Principal architect with consultancy experience and ability to lead workshops.
• Deep hands-on AWS/serverless design and delivery for enterprise apps.
• Strong DevOps focus with IaC, CI/CD, and automation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Architect agentic cloud solutions and enterprise applications on AWS.
• Lead client workshops, governance, and identify technical growth opportunities.
• Mentor engineers, review code, and promote quality-first delivery practices.

Skills

Leadership

AWS Expertise

Serverless

DevOps

Communication

Tools

Terraform

CDK

CloudFormation

Diagrams-as-code

Job description

Our Commerce & Technology division helps leading global brands deliver digital experiences. As clients transition from AI experimentation to production-grade, autonomous agentic platforms (systems that plan, reason, act, and transact), we are seeking a Principal Technical Architect. Serving as the senior technical authority on our AWS and cloud engagements, you will own the design and quality of robust, scalable applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect Agentic Solutions: Design enterprise cloud applications, specializing in agentic AI platform components (orchestration, memory, tool integration, identity, guardrails, observability) and emerging Agentic Commerce.
• Lead Clients & Drive Growth: Serve as an outward-facing, energetic leader who runs workshops, participates in governance, and collaborates with commercial teams to identify and shape technical growth opportunities.
• Hands-on Delivery & Mentorship: Remain close to the detail by proving solutions, reviewing code, and mentoring engineering teams to set a high bar for quality, automation, and best practices.

What you’ll be doing

• Technical Leadership & Governance: Act as the account's senior authority on complex cloud architectures (esp. AWS serverless). Establish technical governance, design standards, and manage risk, non-functional requirements (NFRs), and technical debt.
• Agentic AI & Commerce Innovation: Design AWS-based agentic AI platforms (orchestration, RAG, memory, guardrails, and MCP). Establish reusable patterns and advise clients on emerging Agentic Commerce standards (ACP, AP2, A2A, and secure payment models).
• Client Engagement & Account Growth: Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, translate complex concepts, and facilitate technical discovery workshops. Proactively identify, shape, and pitch technical solutions to drive account growth.
• Hands-on Engineering & Delivery: Provide hands-on technical ownership by proving solutions, reviewing code, and designing robust API/integration patterns. Champion a quality-first mindset using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), CI/CD, and automation.
• Capability Building: Mentor engineers and architects, share knowledge on emerging technologies, and raise the overall technical bar across the account and practice.

What we want from you

• Leadership & Consulting: Senior/Principal architect with experience in digital agencies or consultancies, skilled at leading development teams, guiding clients through workshops, and identifying business growth opportunities.
• AWS & Serverless Architecture: Deep hands-on expertise in designing, documenting, and delivering resilient, high-availability enterprise applications on AWS (including serverless patterns and appropriate integration components).
• Agentic AI & Commerce: Strong understanding of building agentic AI platforms on AWS (e.g., Bedrock, orchestrations, RAG, gateways/MCP) and awareness of emerging Agentic Commerce concepts and standards (ACP, AP2, A2A).
• DevOps & Quality Automation: Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/CDK/CloudFormation), CI/CD pipelines, and a strict quality-first mindset (unit testing, automated tooling).
• Communication & Collaboration: Proactive, energetic collaborator with excellent written, verbal, and diagrammatic skills capable of translating complex technical concepts for senior stakeholders.

If you know some of this, even better

• AWS Solutions Architect Professional (or Associate as a minimum)
• AWS Specialty certifications (e.g., Security, Data/ML)
• Familiarity with:
• The C4 model
• Diagrams-as-code
• DevOps practices
• Headless architectures
• Practical application of LLMs within enterprises

What we can offer you

Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are.

Permanent only:

We offer a great benefits package including a discretionary bonus scheme, training opportunities, competitive pension, medical insurance, life assurance, social events, opportunities to buy and sell holidays, family friendly policies, discounts with hundreds of retailers and much more.

Our culture thrives on our core values, designed for impact-driven individuals: Heart, Brains and Courage.

We lead with Heart, fostering empathy and trust where genuine connections and human-centric work flourish.

We empower your Brains for innovation, valuing relentless curiosity and collaborative intelligence to solve complex challenges.

And we champion Courage, inspiring you to speak up, embrace experimentation, and advocate for bold solutions that push our thinking to be better than yesterday.

How we use AI in the recruitment process:

To ensure more focused and engaging conversations, we leverage AI in our recruitment process exclusively for secure, objective note-taking, never for evaluative judgments. This allows our team to be fully present with you. You are always welcome to request a transcript of these notes or opt out of this feature at any time. Opting out will not impact the outcome of the interview process"