Principal Solutions Architect

A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. 

Aker Systems designs, builds and runs secure cloud and data platforms for complex, regulated environments. We work with public and private sector organisations to modernise critical systems, improve how they use data, and deliver secure, scalable solutions that stand up to demanding operational and compliance needs.

We are looking for a Principal Solutions Architect to help shape and deliver secure cloud, data and digital solutions across our client and product delivery work.

You will play a key role in shaping solution designs across cloud, data, security, service and application areas. You will be involved from early discovery and options analysis through to high-level and low-level design, assurance, governance and delivery oversight.

This is a client-facing architecture role, so you’ll need to be comfortable talking to customers, understanding their challenges, and explaining complex designs in a way that feels clear and practical.

You will not be expected to be hands-on with day to day engineering, but you’ll need enough technical depth to guide engineering teams, challenge design decisions, and make sure solutions are secure, scalable, supportable and aligned to what the client needs.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Leading the development of high-level and detailed solution designs across cloud, data, security, service and application domains
• Helping clients explore options, understand trade-offs and make informed architecture decisions
• Working within client constraints while still helping them see what’s possible with modern cloud, data and platform engineering
• Keeping the overall solution design on track from discovery through to delivery
• Reviewing technical deliverables against approved designs and spotting where things are starting to drift
• Supporting technical change requests, impact assessments and architecture governance
• Making sure solutions line up with non-functional requirements, design principles, patterns and security standards
• Maintaining current-state and target-state architecture views, including technology stacks, integrations and design decisions
• Identifying reusable design patterns and product improvements that can feed into Aker’s core product set
• Working closely with DevOps, platform engineering, data engineering and application development teams

Core Competencies

You’ll have strong experience in:

• Designing and delivering enterprise scale platforms, managed services or bespoke software solutions
• Cloud native architecture across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform or hybrid environments
• Designing secure solutions for sensitive, regulated or high assurance environments
• Data platforms, data integration, streaming, analytics, data mesh, data products or large-scale data modernisation programmes
• Distributed, event-driven and API led systems
• Producing high-level and low-level design documentation
• Architecture governance, assurance, non-functional requirements and design reviews
• Agile delivery environments and modern CI/CD or DevOps ways of working
• Working with engineering teams to guide implementation and keep delivery aligned to design
• Client facing architecture, including working with senior product and technology stakeholders to understand problems and present clear recommendations
• Curiosity and creativity, with a focus on helping clients understand the art of the possible
• Strong understanding of cloud architecture, platform engineering and modern application delivery
• Ability to design secure, scalable and resilient distributed systems
• Good understanding of how security fits into wider solution design
• Ability to assess options and make pragmatic recommendations
• Clear and confident communication with clients, stakeholders and delivery teams
• Comfortable working in complex client environments with technical, commercial, security and governance constraints
• Strong documentation skills, including diagrams, design decisions and technical narratives
• Collaborative working style, with the ability to guide and influence multidisciplinary teams