Lead Technical Architect

On behalf of The Ministry of Justice, we are looking for a Lead Technical Architect (Inside IR35) for a 12 month hybrid contract based 2 days per week in any national UK office.

SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position, (and speed at which we require a postholder in situ), preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active security clearance.

This role is with the digital team supporting the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which manages claims for compensation from victims of violent crime. The role will initially be part of a small discovery team exploring how to incrementally replace CICA's Legacy case management systems with digital services which meet the Government Service Standard. The discovery team's work will lay the foundation for CICA Digital's strategy for the next few years, and will include understanding the current landscape, identifying and analysing a range of possible replacement approaches, and recommending a path forward. This role will then be the technical lead on the replacement work as it gets under way.

The Legacy case management systems are supported by in-house technical teams who have deep understanding of their systems, and they will be close collaborators with the discovery team. We need to bring those teams along on the journey towards replacement of the Legacy systems which they maintain and ensure they feel included in the process, and this role will be crucial for that.

CICA Digital also has multi-disciplinary product teams which work on digital services, including the live public facing service Claim criminal injuries compensation, and AI-powered tools in development to assist caseworkers. CICA aims to provide a trauma-informed service, treating victims with compassion, sensitivity and fairness.

While many CICA Digital team members are spread across the UK and collaborate remotely, some are based in central Glasgow in CICA's office, including the teams supporting Legacy systems, and occasional travel to the Glasgow office will be required to facilitate close collaboration with them.

Key Responsibilities:
. Work with the Principal Technical Architect to define, maintain and own the technical strategy and roadmap for services of various sizes and complexity, defining how they integrate with other services and teams, and how they evolve over time
. Guide technical teams, influence technical choices and seek out opportunities for digital transformation
. Undertake structured evaluation of technical concepts, translating this into technical designs that describe a solution
. Align your team's work with departmental and wider government technology strategy
. Look for opportunities to collaborate, communicating with both technical and non-technical people
. Assure other services and system quality, ensuring the technical work fits into the broader strategy for the agency
. Collaborate and find agreement with senior stakeholders, providing both technical and non-technical direction and challenge
. Mentor, coach, and line manage senior and mid level technical architects

Skills & experience required:
. Experience in a technical/solution architecture role within multi-disciplinary teams
. Practical working knowledge of modern cloud first architectures, and how to build applications to take advantage of the opportunities they offer
. Experience of devising software architecture for multitier web solutions which typically include Front End and/or Back End microservices, API provision/consumption, databases
. Able to identify and mitigate security risks when designing and operating in a public cloud environment
. Experience of building software to meet user needs
. Experience of introducing and championing best practices such as TDD, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and DevOps to teams
. Translates technical concepts between multidisciplinary teams and other stakeholders so they are understood by all. Expert at mediating and mending relationships and communicating with senior stakeholders

Tech stack:
. Programming languages such as TypeScript/Node
. AWS using infrastructure as code with Terraform
. Container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes
. Public GitHub repositories for our work
. Modern development practices such as domain-driven design, test driven development, continuous integration and continuous delivery
. Mac laptops
. Other tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, AppInsights, GitHub Actions, CircleCI
. Legacy systems use Oracle Database, WebLogic & Forms, and Tungsten TotalAgility & SQL Server

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.