Solution Architect

Travel Counsellors; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

Travel Counsellors is seeking an experienced Solutions Architect to join their technology team in Manchester. In this role, you will contribute to the digital platform supporting independent travel agents, working on modernizing systems and ensuring scalable solutions. The company values relationships, innovation, and offers extensive employee benefits, including a competitive salary and flexible working options.

Benefits

Flexible hybrid working model (2 days home, 3 days office)

25 days holidays (increasing to 28 after 5 years)

Enhanced Maternity / Paternity pay

Company Pension scheme

Private Medical Insurance

Employee Assistance Programme

Free breakfast, fruit, and hot/cold beverages

Qualifications

• 3+ years in a similar role, showing strong progression.
• Strong experience in system modernization and cloud migration.
• AWS Solution Architect certification is beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable, cloud-based solutions.
• Support technology modernization and stakeholder collaboration.
• Establish architectural practices and drive engineering culture.

Skills

Cloud-based systems

Microservice architecture

Event Driven architectures

DevOps processes

Education

Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

.Net Core

Node.js

AWS

Job description

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Here at Travel Counsellors, our customers, communities and colleagues lie at the heart of everything that we do - and that’s what makes us special. For us, relationships come before transactions, and we are there for our customers, connecting with them on a deeply human level through the moments that matter.

We’ve been changing lives for the past 30 years as the leading travel marketplace for self-employed travel entrepreneurs, empowering over 2,000 global independent travel agents to run successful leisure and corporate travel businesses. We pride ourselves in remaining a company that truly cares and one that has never wavered from its purpose; to redefine what personal means for a travel business.

Our Travel Counsellors are supported by a team of over 400 super talented people in our Support Offices to help them create unique, inspiring and exciting experiences for their customers, whilst building lasting personal relationships that bring them back to us, time and time again.

Our unique approach within the workplace – as well as towards customers – has seen us receive numerous awards and accolades, including being named as The Best Place to Work in Travel at the 2022 TTG Travel Industry Awards, placing in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list 2023 and 2024 (Large Company) as well as being the first travel company to be awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category!

We are currently expanding at a phenomenal rate – on the back of what is our record year in terms of revenue (over £930m) - and so are looking for outstanding individuals to join our dedicated Head Office team, to help the company continue to flourish.

Role Overview

We are looking for an experiencedSolutionsArchitect to join our growingtechnology team in Manchester, UK. Working as part of our dynamic technology function, you willdirectly contribute to an award-winning digital platform that supports over 2000 entrepreneurial travel businesses.

You willwork helping us transformand modernise the core of our platform, across quote, book andback office domains. You will play a pivotal role in designing and implementing scalable, innovate solutions that meet the evolvingneeds of our Travel Counsellors.

Principal Accountabilities

• To be part of a high performing team delivering scalable, resilient, customer centric systems the make up our Personal Digital Platform.
  
• To support our technology modernisation effort, designing and building scalable, resilient, cloud-based systems in a microservice-based architecture.
  
• Work closely with stakeholders to understand business requirements and translate them into technical solutions.
  
• Design and implement solutions that promote flexibility, scalability, and maintainability.
  
• Collaborate with development teams to guide implementation and ensure adherence to architectural guardrails.
  
• Help establish architectural guardrails, practices and patterns in conjunction with engineering teams.
  
• Drive non-functional requirements and quality and standards across the platform. Conducting regular reviews and providing guidance to ensure solutions meet quality standards and non-functional requirements.
  
• Stay updated on emerging technologies and industry trends to drive innovation and continuous improvement.
  
• To help drive a high-performing engineering culture, providing technical leadership and a coaching attitude to colleagues and team members.

Key Experience Required

• 3+ years in a similar role, demonstrating strong progression and an aptitude to learn and develop.
• Strong experience of building modern, cloud based, customer facing systems.
• Modern software development experience with .Net Core, Node.js, Go or other modern languages.
• Experience with CI/CD principles.
• Extensive experience in system modernisation and cloud migration.
• Strong experience building scalable solutions in AWS.
• Strong experience designing and building systems leveraging Event Driven architectures.
• Experience in promoting DevOps processes within an Engineering organisation.
• Experience in a high paced technology development environment preferred.
• AWS Solution Architect certified would be beneficial (professional level a bonus).
• Degree preferred from leading university – Computer Science, Software Engineering, Maths or other numerate subjects or equivalent professional experience.
• Experience in Travel not necessary.

Working here at Travel Counsellors, we value the hard work and effort that our colleagues put in. Because of this, you can expect a wide range of employee benefits including:

• A competitive basic salary + annual company bonus
• Flexible hybrid working model (2 days home, 3 days office)
• Career development and promotional opportunities
• 25 days holidays (increasing to 28 after 5 years of service)
• A Moments That Matter day (annually)
• Enhanced Maternity / Paternity pay
• Holiday buy and sell (up to 5 days per year)
• 3 paid days charity leave
• Company events, socials, and incentives
• 3x annual salary death in service benefit
• Company Pension scheme
• Salary sacrifice, company car scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Free breakfast, fruit, and hot/cold beverages
• Private Medical Insurance (taxable benefit) or Healthcare Cash Plan (costs incurred by employees)