Technical Architect

Senior Technical / Solution Architect

Location: Hybrid – 2–3 days per week onsite based in either Midlands & North England

Clearance: Active SC Clearance

Employment: Permanent or 12-month FTC

About Amber Labs

Amber Labs is a people-first technology consultancy delivering secure, innovative and scalable digital solutions across the UK public sector. We work on complex digital transformation programmes where technology genuinely matters, bringing together talented architects, engineers, designers and delivery specialists to solve challenging problems and create better services.

We're a collaborative and supportive team where people are encouraged to share ideas, challenge constructively and take ownership of their work. You'll have the opportunity to work alongside experienced technical specialists while contributing to meaningful, large-scale transformation programmes.

The Role

We're looking for experienced Senior Technical / Solution Architects to join our growing architecture community and support complex UK Government digital transformation programmes.

You'll work across strategic solution design and detailed technical architecture, helping shape modern, scalable and resilient digital services.

Depending on the programme, you could be working on cloud transformation, legacy modernisation, large-scale digital services, platform development, migration or enterprise technology change.

You'll work closely with engineering and delivery teams, senior stakeholders and other architects to turn complex business and user needs into robust technical solutions.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead the design and development of technical and solution architectures for complex digital services.
• Design scalable, resilient and secure solutions across cloud, hybrid and on-premise environments.
• Develop architecture for microservices, APIs, distributed systems and event-driven solutions.
• Translate business and user needs into clear technical solutions with appropriate traceability.
• Produce architecture models, solution views, technical designs and other architecture artefacts.
• Work closely with engineering teams to guide technical decisions and support delivery.
• Apply appropriate architecture principles, patterns, standards and best practices.
• Identify and address technical debt and help develop modernisation strategies.
• Support architecture assurance, governance and technical decision-making.
• Communicate complex architectural concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Present and justify technical designs at architecture and governance forums.
• Consider non-functional requirements including security, scalability, resilience, performance and operational readiness.

Architecture

• Strong experience as a Technical Architect, Solution Architect or Technical/Solution Architect.
• Experience designing and delivering large-scale digital services or enterprise systems.
• Strong architecture design and modelling experience.
• Experience applying architecture patterns, principles, standards and best practices.
• Experience producing clear architecture artefacts and solution views.
• Experience working throughout the delivery lifecycle, from concept through to implementation and go-live.

Delivery & Stakeholders

• Experience working closely with engineering and delivery teams.
• Agile, DevOps and/or hybrid delivery environments.
• Strong senior stakeholder engagement and influencing skills.
• Ability to explain and communicate complex technical decisions clearly.
• Experience with architecture governance, assurance and technical standards.

The Technology Environment

Cloud: AWS, Azure, GCP

Architecture: Microservices, distributed systems, event-driven architecture, API-led architecture

Integration: REST APIs, Kafka, messaging, Pub/Sub, data streaming, file-based integration

Development: Java, Spring Boot, Node.js and related technologies

Data: MongoDB, NoSQL and modern data platforms

Infrastructure: Containers, cloud hosting and networking

Architecture practices: DDD, architecture modelling, governance, assurance, technical standards

Desirable

• Domain-Driven Design (DDD).
• SaaS product selection and implementation.
• Technical debt reduction.
• Scalability and resilience.
• Disaster Recovery and operational readiness.
• Non-functional requirements.
• Product and technical roadmaps.
• UK Government digital transformation.

Why Amber Labs?

At Amber Labs, you'll be joining a team that values people, collaboration and technical excellence.

You'll have the opportunity to:

• Work on complex and meaningful UK public sector transformation programmes.
• Collaborate with experienced architects, engineers, designers and delivery specialists.
• Work on modern technology and challenging architectural problems.
• Contribute to an environment where your technical opinion is valued.
• Develop your career within a supportive and collaborative consultancy.
• Work across different programmes and technology challenges rather than being restricted to one narrow technical area.

If you're an experienced Technical or Solution Architect looking for the opportunity to work on challenging, large-scale digital transformation, we'd love to hear from you.