Senior Solution Architect & Engineering Leader

Barclays; Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Barclays Wealth Management is seeking a Principal Engineer to provide senior technical leadership across engineering teams, ensuring scalable, secure and architecture-aligned solutions.

You will bridge Engineering and Architecture, guiding design decisions, governance and complex problem-solving throughout the solution lifecycle. The role emphasizes collaboration with Architects, Product and Delivery teams to maintain engineering excellence and platform coherence.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a Principal Engineer, Lead Engineer, Solution Architect or equivalent senior technical leadership role.
• Strong background in solution design and software engineering across complex enterprise platforms.
• Demonstrable experience designing scalable, secure and resilient distributed systems.
• Deep understanding of modern engineering practices, including APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, cloud platforms and DevSecOps.
• Ability to balance architectural principles with practical delivery considerations and engineering constraints.
• Experience working closely with Architecture functions, contributing to design governance and technology strategy.
• Strong understanding of non-functional requirements including security, resilience, performance, observability and operational support.
• Proven ability to influence technical decisions across multiple teams without direct management authority.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, capable of engaging effectively with Engineers, Architects, Product and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design of complex technology solutions across Wealth Management platforms, ensuring alignment with business objectives, engineering standards and architectural principles.
• Partner with engineering teams during discovery, design and delivery phases to develop scalable, secure and maintainable solutions.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance on solution design decisions, helping teams navigate complexity, trade-offs and implementation challenges.
• Review and challenge solution designs to ensure appropriate consideration of scalability, resilience, security, performance, operability and maintainability.
• Support engineering teams in translating architectural patterns and strategic technology direction into practical implementation approaches.
• Act as the primary interface between Engineering and Architecture, ensuring effective collaboration and alignment across initiatives.
• Work closely with Architects to communicate architectural direction, standards and technology strategies across Wealth Management engineering teams.
• Contribute to architecture reviews, design governance and technology decision forums.
• Identify architectural risks, design gaps and technical dependencies early, helping teams address issues before they impact delivery.
• Promote the adoption of enterprise standards, reference architectures, reusable patterns and shared platform capabilities.
• Mentor Engineering Leads, Senior Engineers and Software Engineers in solution design and architectural thinking.
• Foster stronger engineering understanding of architecture principles, design patterns and technology strategy.
• Support the development of technical communities and design forums across Wealth Management.

Skills

Principal Engineer

Solution Architect

Technical leadership

Architectural governance

API-led design

Cloud platforms

DevSecOps

Microservices

Security & compliance

Stakeholder management

Job description

Barclays Wealth Management is seeking a Principal Engineer to provide senior technical leadership across engineering teams, ensuring scalable, secure and architecture-aligned solutions.

You will bridge Engineering and Architecture, guiding design decisions, governance and complex problem-solving throughout the solution lifecycle. The role emphasizes collaboration with Architects, Product and Delivery teams to maintain engineering excellence and platform coherence.