Solutions Specialist
Role: Solution Designer
Grade: GCB4
Location: Sheffield
Solutions Designers are responsible for the end-to-end solution design and delivery in support of enhancing quantum safety positions and ancillary solutions (technology stack, process, policy and guardrails). They are responsible for producing design documents in line with functional and non-functional business requirements, strategies, principles, standards, and patterns. Alongside the creation of high-level designs, Solutions Designer will be required to publish new architecture patterns, key decisions, design deviations, and technical risks and issues where appropriate. Solutions Designers will work closely with other technical SMEs to bring knowledge of quantum safe practices that can be integrated into their technologies and workflows, maintaining standard approaches where possible.
Solutions Designers should be comfortable presenting and sharing solutions at design authorities and senior leadership & stakeholders. Additionally, the Solutions Designer will provide technical thought leadership and direction to their aligned projects and may stand in as subject matter experts and consultants for related programmes.
Principal Preferred Requirements
Cybersecurity Expertise:
- Significant experience and proven technical depth within the following domains: cryptography, data security, identity & access management, privileged access management.
- Broad background across information technology with the ability to communicate clearly with non-security technical SMEs at a comfortable level
- Experience working in large-scale IT transformation programmes
Qualifications & Certifications:
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in cybersecurity, computer science, software engineering, or related field
- CISSP/CISM certification or other broad cybersecurity industry-recognised certificate
Platform & Technology:
- Working proficiency in Jira for project & tasks management
- Working proficiency in Confluence for documentation
- BizzDesign, Archi, or generic UML visualisation experience for high-level designs
Principal Accountabilities and Responsibilities
Architecture, Technical & Design:
- Produce, manage, and update end-to-end solution designs in line with reference architecture & business requirements
- Articulate and publish key design decision records and options to ensure all solutions follow a logical, transparent decision-making process
- Articulate, publish, and ensure approval of any design deviations resulting in technical debt
- Ensure any technical risks or issues arising from a solution design are recorded and mitigated.
- Produces, manages and translates the requirements into the architecture for that solution, ensuring technology and services meet the customer needs and expected business outcomes
- Ensures the design of the solutions are efficient, timely and cost effective throughout the project lifecycle
- Clear understanding of both the motivations of the business and technical security
- Promote strong documentation and clerkship
Governance:
- Ensures all high-level designs, architecture patterns, decision records, deviation requests, and technical risks or issue records undergo architectural and project governance processes
- Ensure all architecture and design artefacts undergo appropriate peer review prior to design authority presentation
- Present publications at technical design authorities for input, feedback, and approval
Risk and Dependency Management:
- Effectively manages and escalates both technical and project risks or issues
- Articulates solutions and remediation steps to technical risks & issues
- Ability to map design decisions to resultant technical risks & issues to articulate the cause and rationale which leads to any negatively impacting change
Leadership & Teamwork
- Provides technical thought leadership in their domain of expertise
- Willingness and ability to work across information technology as a cybersecurity SME, particularly with knowledge of quantum safety.