Solution Architect - Digital Applications

AMS CWS; Warrington; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

AMS is recruiting two experienced Solution Architects for Royal London on a 6-month contract, based at Alderley Park near Manchester with a 50% hybrid work model. These roles focus on building a state-of-the-art digital platform, delivering scalable APIs, microservices and secure cloud architectures, while collaborating closely with Product and Engineering teams to set architectural direction.

Candidates should have a software engineering background and proven experience as a Solution/Technical

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing and delivering modern digital applications.
• Experience as a Solution Architect or Technical Architect.
• Experience designing secure, scalable, cloud-based applications.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end solution design for digital products and services across multiple agile squads.
• Translate business requirements into scalable, secure and maintainable technical solutions.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering and Principal Engineers to ensure architectural decisions align with business objectives and technology strategy.
• Produce solution designs, architectural artefacts and technical roadmaps that support the delivery of modern digital platforms.
• Provide architectural guidance throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring solutions are practical, achievable and aligned to engineering best practice.
• Define and review API strategies, including GraphQL and REST service design.
• Support the adoption of domain-driven design, microservices, event-driven architectures and modern integration patterns.
• Ensure appropriate consideration is given to security, authentication, authorisation, observability, performance and operational support requirements.
• Work closely with development teams to review implementation approaches and provide technical leadership during delivery.
• Contribute to architectural governance, technical standards and continuous improvement initiatives across the technology organisation.
• Support architecture decisions across customer journeys and digital experiences, including onboarding and servicing capabilities.

Skills

Software engineering

Solution Architect

Cloud-based architecture

Java

Angular

GraphQL

REST APIs

Microservices

Domain-driven design

Agile

Job description

We are AMS. We are a global total workforce solutions firm; we enable organisations to thrive in an age of constant change by building, re-shaping, and optimising workforces. Our Contingent Workforce Solutions (CWS) is one of our service offerings; we act as an extension of our clients' recruitment team and provide professional interim and temporary resources.

We are currently working with our client, Royal London.

On behalf of our client, AMS are looking for two experienced Solution Architects for a 6 month contract (with potential for extension), based in Alderley Park, outside of Manchester, on a hybrid working model of 50% from home, 50% onsite.

Royal London is a financial services company with a difference. As the UK's largest mutual life, pensions and investment company, we're owned by our members and work for their benefit, not for shareholder profits. We've grown rapidly and have been recognised as one of the UK's top rated places to work.

Today, Royal London has over £114 billion of funds under management, and around 3,500 employees working in six offices across the UK and Ireland. We've worked hard to become experts in our specialist markets, building a trusted brand - and our teams have plenty of awards to show for it. Whatever team you're interested in joining and whatever role you play, we'll help you to make a difference.

Purpose of the Role:

The Digital Applications Solution Architects will play a crucial role in helping to build business critical digital solutions. This particular team is focused on delivering a new state-of-the-art long-term savings and pensions platform.

This role is ideally suited to someone who has evolved from a software engineering background into architecture.
While the role is predominantly architecture-focused (approximately 80%), you will maintain close engagement with engineering teams and be expected to demonstrate technical depth and credibility.

Responsibilities of the role:

As a Solution Architect, you will:

• Own the end-to-end solution design for digital products and services across multiple agile squads.
• Translate business requirements into scalable, secure and maintainable technical solutions.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering and Principal Engineers to ensure architectural decisions align with business objectives and technology strategy.
• Produce solution designs, architectural artefacts and technical roadmaps that support the delivery of modern digital platforms.
• Provide architectural guidance throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring solutions are practical, achievable and aligned to engineering best practice.
• Define and review API strategies, including GraphQL and REST service design.
• Support the adoption of domain-driven design, microservices, event-driven architectures and modern integration patterns.
• Ensure appropriate consideration is given to security, authentication, authorisation, observability, performance and operational support requirements.
• Work closely with development teams to review implementation approaches and provide technical leadership during delivery.
• Contribute to architectural governance, technical standards and continuous improvement initiatives across the technology organisation.
• Support architecture decisions across customer journeys and digital experiences, including onboarding and servicing capabilities.

What we require from the Solution Architects:

• A software engineering background with experience designing and delivering modern digital applications.
• Proven experience as a Solution Architect or Technical Architect.
• Experience designing secure, scalable and resilient cloud-based applications.
• Strong understanding of frontend and backend application architectures with experience in Java and Angular.
• Experience designing and consuming GraphQL and/or REST APIs.
• Knowledge of microservices, domain-driven design and distributed systems architecture.
• Experience with containerised cloud-hosted applications and modern cloud platforms.
• Understanding of event-driven architectures, asynchronous messaging and event-streaming technologies.
• Experience operating within Agile delivery environments and cross-functional product teams.

Next steps

This client will only accept workers operating via an Umbrella/PAYE engagement model.