Lead Solution Architect

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Lead Solutions Architect

London or Edinburgh based role (please only apply if able to work in this location at least 1 day per week, hybrid & flexible arrangements available).

Salary & Benefits:

London: £81,928 - £102,410 annual base salary

Edinburgh: £70,784 - £88,480 annual base salary

On the top of the annual guaranteed salary, we also offer annual personal bonus, up to 15% employer pension contribution, 4% flexible cash pot, private medical insurance, 30 days holiday plus bank holidays.

We also provide our colleagues with number of free health and well-being offerings including life events & stages, disability support and generous parental / adoption leave policies.

*** Annual salary increase and improved Rewards Package has been confirmed for 2023 ***

Who is Lloyds Banking Group?

At Lloyds Banking Group we're committed to transforming and redefining The UK's largest Digital Bank for our 18 million digital customers we have across our brands including Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland. LBG is on a mission to build the bank of the future, and we need your help to do it! Continuing our extensive transformation programme, we're redefining what a bank is from the inside out. Our technology, our culture, and our mind-set is changing to craft a true engineering-led organisation.

Commercial Banking division has a rich heritage of supporting businesses and the economic prosperity of the nation, primarily focused on UK businesses and those with strong links to the UK.

About the role

We're creating exciting opportunities within the Working Capital Lab to improve customer experiences for our Commercial Banking clients for years to come.

With our business evolving to more modern and flexible ways of working, we want driven, dynamic and innovative individuals to join us on this journey. Working alongside our partners in the Commercial Bank will put you at the heart of the digitisation agenda for both clients and colleagues.

We're looking for someone who is passionate, inspiring and customer-obsessed, ensuring that the team are always focused on the priorities that will deliver the best outcomes for our customers and colleagues.

We're hugely proud of the relationships we hold with our clients and key partners as trusted delivery providers. This is key to our success.

Our culture brings together experienced, hardworking, people from a diverse group of backgrounds that enjoy a collaborative and innovative environment that supports flexible and agile working, always learning and improving ourselves and sharing knowledge.

What will I be responsible for?

As our Lead Solution Architect within the lab you would have a responsibility for guiding our solution architecture team and shaping the strategic roadmap for the lab and our application / infrastructure estate. As chapter lead you'll be responsible for the line management of our architects and helping them grow and develop the right skills and capabilities for the future. Working alongside our Enterprise Architects and Engineers you'll also engage in hands on design activity for key initiatives and teams, ensuring the right solutions are put in place to modernise and future proof our estate.

As well as guiding and communicating our enterprise Vision through Solution Design, you'll play a significant part in keeping our customers safe, through smart, pragmatic design choices that can be built, modified, and operated in a fast-paced agile environment. Your contribution will be instrumental to our strategy of simplifying, modernising, and de-risking the Working Capital technology landscape, enabling the Bank of the Future and ultimately driving value for customers and shareholders. This is a key role at the financial heart of LBG, underpinning the long-term sustainability and integrity of the organisation.

Encouraging the right culture is key and you'll embrace a "Fail Fast, Learn Faster" approach. Experimenting new ways of engineering and adopting a test and learn approach, with a focus on learning and continuous improvement.

Essential skills and experience:

Experience designing innovative solutions in an increasingly digital world - understanding how modern software applications are built and delivered is key.

Experience of designing solutions for demanding Business colleagues, demonstrating diligence, insight and willingness to challenge - this leadership role will provide direction for our Lab architects and engineers, blending domain knowledge, deep technical expertise, and coaching cross-disciplinary feature teams to deliver high quality maintainable software.

Good knowledge of infrastructure and security architecture practices and concerns.

Have played an active part in architecture and design governance.

Excellent communication skills to effectively translate sophisticated concepts into easily understandable language supported by good social skills to lead groups and negotiate and build consensus.

Proven track record of assessing business needs and translating them into relevant solutions.

Experience in delivering change involving 3rd parties, collaborating and working together to achieve a shared goal.

Desirable skills and experience:

Ideally you'll have previous career experience in Software Engineering however this is not essential.

Sound understanding of Cloud methodologies and experience designing applications through containerised microservices-based architectures.

TOGAF or equivalent qualification / experience.

Experience of sophisticated financial services system integrations involving risk, finance and payments data would be helpful.

What type of personal skills do we look for?

"This is a technical role, but at this level your people skills are often more important."

Strong people and communication skills! That includes the ability to lead, influence and coach a wide range of stakeholders.

You'll be comfortable working within multi-disciplinary teams, take a collaborative approach and be genuinely passionate about the field of Solutions Architecture.

You'll have a desire to make a difference, both to our engineering activities and the people you're responsible for.

This would be a great role if you......

Really want to make a positive difference within our Technology community

Want to be at the heart of delivering an exciting and challenging change agenda

Enjoy a people focused and technical position

Can readily translate the importance of technicalities to non-technical people and the relevant business impacts.

So why should you apply?

You'll become part of a team that has an inclusive, values-led culture. This means we embrace that not everyone is the same or likes to work in the same way. We're focused on delivering for both our customers and our colleagues; you'll receive support to learn, grow and develop, benefitting from a huge range of opportunities opened up by being part of our Group.

Offering hybrid working patterns we believe that a healthy work/ life balance is as important as the work we deliver, just let us know what might work for you.

We are passionate about diversity and equal opportunity with industry recognition across gender, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and families.

We're committed to employing a diverse and inclusive workforce, reflective of the customers and communities we serve, where all our colleagues can be themselves and succeed on merit.

And we're proud to have received these industry recognitions: Stonewall Top Private Sector Employer, Top10 Employer for Working Families, The Times Top 50 Employer for Women and both Gold Standard and Best Workplace Adjustments Process from the Business Disability Forum.

Are you interested in joining us? Apply today, we'd love to hear from you.

Together we'll make it possible...