Solution Architect – Component Designer Assurance & AI

## Embark on a Transformative Journey: Solution Architect - Component Designer, Assurance & AI

This role presents a compelling opportunity for an experienced Solution Architect to join a dynamic and evolving team focused on shaping the future of Barclays' digital landscape. If you are passionate about leveraging cutting-edge technology to drive innovation, enhance customer experiences, and build robust, scalable systems, this position offers a significant platform for growth and impact.

The newly formed Operational Support Systems (OSS) & Tools unit within the Network Product domain is at the forefront of this transformation. The Engineering team is tasked with the critical responsibility of designing, building, and operating the foundational OSS infrastructure and toolchain that underpins the entire Barclays Global Network. This spans across cloud, data centers, campus, and branch environments, demanding a forward-thinking and comprehensive approach to architecture and implementation.

Advantages for Potential Candidates:

• Pioneering Role in a New Unit: As part of a newly formed team, you'll have a unique opportunity to influence the direction and establish best practices. Your contributions will directly shape the OSS & Tools landscape for Barclays Global Network.
• Cutting-Edge Technology Exposure: The role emphasizes the use of modern, open-source tooling for observability (ELK, Grafana, Prometheus), middleware (Kafka, API Gateways), and data engineering (Apache Spark, Airflow, Flink, Hadoop). This provides hands-on experience with technologies at the forefront of digital infrastructure.
• Strategic Impact and Innovation: You will be instrumental in designing solutions that balance technological risks with business delivery, driving consistency and fostering innovation. This includes exploring cloud capabilities like elasticity, serverless, and containerization.
• Career Development in High-Demand Areas: With a strong emphasis on DevOps, GitOps, CI/CD, and AI engineering (GenAI/Agentic AI), this role offers excellent opportunities to deepen your expertise in highly sought-after specializations.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: The role involves close collaboration with various product and engineering teams, as well as stakeholders across the organization. This fosters a broad understanding of business needs and allows for the development of holistic solutions.
• Focus on Observability and Performance: A key aspect of the role is building high-scale observability solutions, which is crucial for maintaining the health, performance, and reliability of large-scale networks.
• Contribution to Enterprise Strategy: As a Vice President expectation, you will have the opportunity to contribute to setting strategy, driving requirements, and making recommendations for change, influencing the future direction of the department and the wider organization.

Key Considerations for Your Career Path:

• Technical Breadth and Depth Required: Success in this role demands a strong foundation in network technology fundamentals, data structures, scalable system design, and a proven ability to translate complex requirements into structured solutions.
• Hands-On Experience is Crucial: The job description clearly outlines the need for demonstrable hands-on experience with the specified observability, middleware, and data engineering tools. Candidates should be prepared to showcase their practical application of these technologies.
• Cloud and DevOps Proficiency: A solid understanding of cloud infrastructure services (compute, storage, networking, security, IAM) and DevOps tooling (GitOps, CI/CD, configuration management) is highly valued.
• Programming Skills are Advantageous: While not always a primary focus, programming experience in languages like Python, Java, or Golang will be a significant asset for developing automated solutions and contributing to AI engineering initiatives.
• Agile Methodology and SRE Principles: Familiarity with Agile methodologies (Scrum/Kanban) and SRE reporting metrics (MTTR, deployment frequency, SLOs) is important for efficient workflow management and performance monitoring.
• Risk Management and Controls: A critical aspect of the role involves assessing and mitigating risks, ensuring solutions align with security principles and the bank's resiliency expectations. This requires a diligent approach to controls and governance.
• Strategic and Business Acumen: Beyond technical skills, the role assesses candidates on their strategic thinking, business acumen, and ability to understand the broader impact of their solutions on the organization.
• Leadership and Mentorship Potential: For those aspiring to leadership, this role offers opportunities to set strategy, plan resources, and potentially mentor less experienced colleagues. Individual contributors will lead technical direction and guide complex assignments.

This Solution Architect position in Knutsford is more than just a job; it's an invitation to be a key player in a significant technological evolution. If you are driven by challenges, possess a strong technical aptitude, and are eager to make a lasting impact, this opportunity is well-aligned with ambitious career trajectories in the technology sector.