Cloud Architect

Having started in 2006 with just three team members, we've evolved into a multi-brand, ecommerce giant with offices worldwide and a passionate team of over 4,000. In the past year alone, we've achieved remarkable milestones including automating our Sheffield distribution centre, launching our US warehouse, and initiating our tech re-platforming.

In Tech, we’re proud to support every function. We’re a digital-first company that is totally cloud native. We embrace change and future-proof the business, delivering critical customer facing and internal stakeholder facing systems. Everything from colleague tech to frontend websites and apps, buying and merchandising tooling, and all that’s in-between, we take care of it. Our ideas support and drive the Group’s agenda.

Your Team

Our Cloud Architect team is a dedicated and innovative group responsible for shaping the architecture of our AWS cloud environment. We focus on maintaining a robust microservices architecture, ensuring that each service is highly scalable, secure, and efficient. Working within a tribe structure, our team collaborates closely with agile squads, each responsible for managing specific services, driving continuous improvement, and maintaining seamless integration across the platform. The Cloud Architect team collaborates closely with Lead and Senior Developers, conducting architecture design reviews and evaluating solution designs to ensure the delivery of top-tier cloud solutions.

Your Role

As a Cloud Architect, you will be responsible for reviewing and optimising our AWS cloud infrastructure, ensuring that it aligns with our strategic goals of scalability, security, and efficiency. We are counting on you to create robust architecture designs, conduct thorough design reviews, and collaborate with development teams to implement cloud solutions that meet the highest standards. A successful Cloud Architect will deliver architectures that not only meet current demands but are also scalable for future growth, demonstrating a deep understanding of both technical and business requirements.

Your Tasks and Responsibilities

-          Collaborate with Product Owners, Technical Leads, and Lead Developers to analyse requirements and guide delivery teams in designing solutions that are scalable, secure, and aligned with business goals. This is essential for maintaining consistency and quality across all technology projects.

-          Define and document standards and patterns within the Reference Architecture. Develop guardrails and architecture templates for use by the delivery teams. You'll formalise best practices and ensure all designs adhere to these standards, streamlining development processes and ensuring solutions are maintainable and future-proof.

-          Participate in the Architecture and Solution Design Reviews to evaluate and approve architectural and solution designs. You'll use your expertise to assess compliance with business requirements, IT vision, regulatory standards, and industry best practices. The outcome is to ensure all solutions align with strategic objectives and are built to last.

-          Stay updated on the latest technology trends and industry capabilities by researching and engaging with professional networks and communities. You'll use resources like AWS Well-Architected Framework, Thoughtworks Tech Radar and other industry publications to inform your decisions and bring innovative solutions to the team. This continuous learning ensures that the organisation remains competitive and technologically advanced.

Your Skills, Knowledge and Experience

-          Expertise in cloud technologies (AWS), microservices, API-led architecture, event-based architecture (including pub-sub and data streaming), and container and networking design patterns. Familiarity with tools and best practices in these areas is key to success in this role.

-          Experience working in fast-paced, dynamic environments, such as retail or similar industries, where high performance and scalability are critical. Experience with web and app creation, particularly with Headless architectures, is highly beneficial.

-          Proven track record of leading large, complex, cross-domain or cross-product architectural designs. You should have hands-on experience as a Solution Architect, with deep technical expertise that enables successful delivery of scalable solutions.

-          Detailed, practical understanding of Enterprise IT infrastructure, software development, and maintenance methods. Your broad knowledge across information systems, combined with deep specialisation in specific areas, will be crucial. A solid grasp of user experience design, especially for high-performance, customer-facing systems, is essential.

-          Provide significant value by leveraging your experience in collaborating with third-party services as the primary technical contact, and by designing solutions that can handle unpredictable high traffic loads. Your understanding of data modelling, caching for performance, and cloud technologies will be instrumental in creating efficient, reliable architectures.

-          Direct people management experience is not a primary requirement, your ability to lead and influence cross-functional teams, guide technical discussions, and mentor less experienced team members will be highly valued. Your leadership in architectural design will drive the success of complex projects across the organisation.