Principal Technical Architect, (AI First)

The Principal Technical Architect will act as the platform’s design authority, setting architectural guardrails, interface contracts, and integration strategy across domains (front end, mobile, backend, data, AI, DevSecOps). You will collaborate with product, engineering, data science, security, and client stakeholders to translate business goals into a resilient, cloud-native, event-driven architecture. A key focus is the Trusted AI Foundation (model/runtime governance, vector/knowledge layers, feedback loops) and core platform integration (API, data, and event flows) to power real-time, personalised experiences at scale.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience shipping complex, distributed consumer platforms (mobile + web), integrating with large transactional systems in a high-stakes environment.

Key Responsibilities:

Solution Design and Architecture

Own the end-to-end architecture; define the target architecture (DDD), NFRs (security, performance, resilience), and platform guardrails.

Create detailed design specifications, reference implementations, and architectural decision records (ADRs).

Design for modularity and evolvability (microservices/micro frontends, event-driven patterns, clear service and domain boundaries).

Ensure the architecture supports offline-first mobile, low-latency personalisation, and graceful degradation when AI or upstreams are unavailable.

Agentic Orchestration (Application Layer)

Define the agentic execution layer: task/goal decomposition, tool use, SOP orchestration, retries/compensation, and human-in-the-loop where required.

Implement application-side guardrails (PII redaction at the edge, prompt-injection defences, output moderation hooks) and align them to policies exposed by the AI Foundation.

Establish evaluation gates, canarying and rollback for agent changes; drive telemetry for quality, safety and cost.

Core Integration & Orchestration (Design Authority)

Lead integration design with the core processing platform:

Define API contracts and async event schemas with versioning and backward compatibility.

Manage data and event flows

Own SOP/workflow orchestration and Event Driven Architecture patterns across Lab49 and core managed services.

Align to industry standards where applicable.

Ensure service level objectives, resilience and clear interface SLAs.

Stakeholder Collaboration

Work closely with product leaders to translate requirements into scalable tech designs and integration patterns.

Collaborate with engineering, security, Platform, and data/AI teams to ensure coherent delivery and operational readiness.

Communicate architectural vision and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Client Interaction

Engage with client architects and programme leadership to align roadmaps, de-risk delivery, and secure sign-off on contracts and standards.

Act as a trusted advisor; contribute to engagement expansion through credible technical leadership.

Technical Leadership

Provide hands-on architectural oversight of code quality, API design, data models, and infra alignment.

Mentor leads and senior engineers; run design reviews and cross-squad architecture forums.

Evaluate and recommend tooling, frameworks, and reference patterns.

Security

Embed security by design across services and data flows.

IAM and identity patterns, secrets management, and secure supply chain.

Threat modelling, vulnerability management, runtime protection, and data privacy compliance.

Governance and Standards

Establish and enforce architectural standards, API guidelines, event schemas, and coding conventions.

Maintain artefacts (models, diagrams, ADRs, interface catalogues) and run periodic architecture reviews.

Universal Engineering

Integrate a diverse technology stack across mobile, web, backend, data, and AI.

Experience in large-scale consumer platforms is essential.

Front End

Oversee the experience layer across web and mobile; ensure modern, accessible, and high-performing UIs.

Champion design systems, micro frontends where appropriate, and robust API/contract boundaries to the app shell.

Personality and Delivery Focus

Strategic, resilient self-starter with an outgoing style; able to influence across organisations.

Bias to action and delivery excellence—on time, within budget, and to quality.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field; Master’s preferred.

10+ years in software/solution engineering with 5+ years in senior/principal architecture roles.

Proven record designing and delivering complex, distributed, cloud-native platforms at scale.

Experience integrating with complex transactional systems is strongly preferred.

Skills

Architecture & Integration: Design modular systems; define API and event contracts; knowledge of Telecom BSS is a plus.

Cloud & Platform: Cloud-native design, containers/orchestration, infrastructure as code, continuous integration/delivery; tune for performance and cost.

Data & Agentic Layer: Data models and streaming; application-side agent orchestration and safety controls.

Security & Reliability: Identity and access, encryption and secrets; timeouts/retries; monitoring, tracing and resilience.

Web/Mobile & Leadership: Modern web and mobile patterns; strong in one backend language; code quality; lead cross-squad decisions.

Certifications (Preferred)

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional

AWS Certified Security - Specialty

Either:

AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty

AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate (to evidence hands-on AI/ML delivery on AWS)

Nice to have:

AWS Certified AI Practitioner

CKA / CKAD for Kubernetes