Senior Networking & Security Solution Architect (Hybrid)

Focus Group; Shoreham-by-Sea; Hybrid; GBP 72,000 - 88,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hybrid

Job summary

Focus Group is seeking a Solution Architect to own the technical design of complex SD-WAN, SASE, and security projects. You will stay hands-on through delivery, building and commissioning solutions with the delivery team across the UK, including on customer sites.

You will translate customer requirements into designs, lead workshops, and mentor delivery engineers, with travel to customer sites and some out-of-hours work for change windows. Up to £80,000 depending on experience.

Qualifications

• CCNP minimum and related networking certs.
• Experience designing and delivering SSE or SASE in production.
• Hands-on design and delivery of multi-site SD-WAN projects.
• Comfort with on-site installations and UK travel.
• Clear written and verbal communication to non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end technical design of multi-site projects from pre-sales to hand-over.
• Hands-on configuration, build, migration and commissioning with the delivery team.
• Travel to UK customer sites for design workshops, surveys and installations.
• Produce High-Level and Low-Level Designs, build documents and runbooks to a customer-facing standard.
• Refine designs as real-world project realities emerge.
• Review engineer configurations and build documents to ensure technical quality.
• Lead and mentor delivery engineers on projects and their certification paths.
• Act as senior technical escalation point during build, migration and cut-over phases.
• Explain design decisions and trade-offs clearly to customers.

Skills

CCNP

SSE/SASE experience

SD-WAN design

Hands-on networking configuration

Customer-facing communication

UK travel readiness

Education

CCNP certification (Cisco)

Fortinet NSE 4 or higher (preferred)

Tools

Cisco devices

Fortinet FortiGate/FortiManager/FortiAnalyzer

SASE platforms (Cisco Secure Access, FortiSASE, Zscaler, Netskope, Cato)

SD-WAN platforms (Cisco Catalyst, Viptela, Meraki, Fortinet)

VPN and security tooling

Job description

Focus Group is seeking a Solution Architect to own the technical design of complex SD-WAN, SASE, and security projects. You will stay hands-on through delivery, building and commissioning solutions with the delivery team across the UK, including on customer sites.

You will translate customer requirements into designs, lead workshops, and mentor delivery engineers, with travel to customer sites and some out-of-hours work for change windows. Up to £80,000 depending on experience.