Solution Architect / Design Engineer

Vallum Associates; Sheffield; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Vallum Associates in the United Kingdom is seeking a Solution Architect to lead end-to-end IAM strategy, delivering secure, scalable identity services within the IDAM 2.0 programme and aligning with the enterprise target state. You will produce HLDs/LLDs, define integration patterns, design cloud-native solutions for GCP and Kubernetes, and shape Zero Trust architectures, PDP/PEP, and Secrets management.

Collaborating with IAM architects, stakeholders and partners, you will mentor engineers,

Job description

The Solution Architect will play a key role in delivering and operating enterprise Identity & Access Management (IAM) capabilities. Provides technical leadership across the IDAM 2.0 workstream, defining the target architecture and ensuring successful delivery of secure, scalable and supportable identity services.

The position works closely with IAM architects, business stakeholders and technology partners.

The client is undergoing a transformation of its Identity and Access Management practices including the delivery of a set of net new tools to overhaul how IAM is carried out in the industry. We are seeking experienced and dynamic Solution Architect who have an excellent understanding of Identity Management, with a successful track record of working in complex global organisations at fast pace. The role will report to the program and be part of a dynamic and highly skilled team. You will also provides end-to-end solution architecture and technical design for the IDAM 2.0 programme, translating business, security and regulatory requirements into secure, scalable and supportable identity solutions. Acts as the technical authority across multiple workstreams, ensuring architectural consistency, integration and alignment with the enterprise target state.

In this role, you will:

• Produce High Level Designs (HLDs) and Low Level Designs (LLDs) for identity capabilities.
• Define end-to-end solution architecture across business, application, data and infrastructure domains.
• Translate business, security and regulatory requirements into technical solutions.
• Develop reference architectures, patterns and design standards for the programme.
• Define integration patterns between identity platforms, applications and infrastructure.
• Design cloud-native solutions for GCP and Kubernetes environments.
• Define authentication, authorisation and federation architectures.
• Design Agent Identity, Human Identity and Workload Identity capabilities.
• Define Zero Trust security architecture and trust boundaries.
• Design API security, service-to-service authentication and workload authentication patterns.
• Develop event-driven integration architectures using messaging and asynchronous processing.
• Design Policy Decision Point (PDP) and Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) architectures using Policy-as-Code.
• Define secrets management, certificate lifecycle and PKI integration patterns.
• Design resilience, disaster recovery and high availability architectures.
• Ensure solutions meet non-functional requirements for security, scalability, resilience and performance.
• Support governance through Architecture Review Boards and Design Authorities.
• Perform solution assurance and technical design reviews across supplier deliveries.
• Identify technical risks, assumptions, constraints and dependencies.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture to ensure alignment with strategic architecture.
• Work with Product Owners to refine technical requirements and delivery priorities.
• Support engineering teams throughout implementation, testing and production readiness.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering best practice.
• Evaluate new technologies and vendor products against programme requirements.
• Contribute to roadmap planning and future-state architecture.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Authentication and Authorisation
• Zero Trust Architecture
• Agent Identity and Workload Identity
• Identity Federation (OIDC, OAuth2, SAML, SCIM)
• Kubernetes and Service Mesh
• API Architecture and Security
• Policy-as-Code (OPA/Cedar)
• PKI, Certificates and Secrets Management