Solution Architect

Lloyds Banking Group; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial institution in Edinburgh is seeking a Solution Architect with extensive experience in Java and Google Cloud Platform. This hybrid role involves designing and architecting scalable enterprise solutions, leading architecture reviews, and collaborating with engineering teams. Ideal candidates should have strong expertise in cloud-native technologies and experience with microservices and API design. The company offers a wide-ranging benefits package, including generous holidays and pension contributions.

Benefits

Generous pension contribution of up to 15%

Annual bonus award based on performance

Share schemes including free shares

Discounted shopping benefits

30 days' holiday

Wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Solution Architect in enterprise-scale environments.
• Hands-on experience with legacy application migration.
• Deep understanding of GCP architecture and services.

Responsibilities

• Design and architect scalable, secure, and resilient solutions using Java and GCP.
• Lead technical design sessions and architecture reviews.
• Drive adoption of GCP-native services.

Skills

Java

Quarkus

Google Cloud Platform

React JS

TypeScript

Automation tools (Selenium, Playwright)

Microservices

API design

Event-driven architectures

Docker

Kubernetes

Tools

Terraform

CI/CD tools

Kafka Streams

Job description

JOB TITLE: Solution Architect

SALARY: £70,929 - £80,000

LOCATION: Edinburgh

HOURS: Full time

WORKING PATTERN: Hybrid, 40% (or two days) in our Edinburgh office

About this opportunity

Great opportunity for a Solution Architect to join our Payment Services Platform. We're looking for an experienced Solution Architect with strong expertise in Java, Spring Framework, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to lead the design and delivery of cloud-native enterprise solutions. This role requires a strategic problem solver who can balance technical leadership with hands‑on solutioning, ensuring alignment with business goals and enterprise architecture standards. This is a great opportunity to help us create a fully in‑house developed gateway to SWIFT Scheme to evolve into a solution fit for the long term future of Payments.

About us

Like the modern Britain we serve, we're evolving. Investing billions in our people, data and tech to transform the way we meet the ever‑changing needs of our 26 million customers. We're growing with purpose. Join us on our journey and you will too

What you'll do

• Design and architect scalable, secure, and resilient solutions using Java, Quarkus, and GCP services.

• Define and enforce architecture principles, patterns, and procedures across the platform.

• Lead technical design sessions, architecture reviews, and solution walkthroughs with different customer groups.

• Collaborate with engineering teams, product owners, and stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions.

• Drive adoption of GCP‑native services such as Cloud Run, GKE, Pub/Sub, BigQuery, ProgressDB and Cloud Functions.

• Ensure solutions meet non‑functional requirements including performance, reliability, security, and compliance.

• Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and guidance to development teams.

• Contribute to DevOps strategy, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure automation using tools like Terraform or Deployment Manager.

• Stay current with GCP innovations, emerging technologies, and industry trends.

What you'll need

• Proven experience, ideally as a Solution Architect in enterprise‑scale environments and should have experience in architecting greenfield development projects

• Strong experience with Java, (bonus points for Quarkus) and UI languages React JS and typescripts and Testing Framework including Automation tools like selenium and playwright

• Having hands on experience in migration experience in legacy application migration

• Deep understanding of GCP architecture, services, and deployment models or equivalent of AWS/Azure cloud skills

• Experience with microservices, API design, and event‑driven architectures especially Kafka Streams

• Familiarity with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and orchestration using GKE.

• Knowledge of CI/CD, DevOps practices, and infrastructure as code.

It would be great if you also had any of the following

• Experience to Banking and Finance Industry along with legacy migration knowledge and payments.

• Understanding of Cloud technology and usage of components and tools in GCP/AZURE/AWS

• Experience in componentising the different tools in messaging framework and event driven patterns and other design experience.

• Experience in presenting, reviewing, auditing the papers and aligning the patterns with bank expertise and stakeholders.

• Usage of AI tools and techniques for identification approaches in bringing up the application and automation direction.

About working for us

Our focus is to ensure we're inclusive every day, building an organisation that reflects modern society and celebrates diversity in all its forms. We want our people to feel that they belong and can be their best, regardless of background, identity or culture. We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative. And it's why we especially welcome applications from under‑represented groups. We're disability confident. So, if you'd like reasonable adjustments to be made to our recruitment processes, just let us know.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%

• An annual bonus award, subject to Group performance

• Share schemes including free shares

• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping

• 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top

• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

If you're excited by the thought of becoming part of our team, get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!