Lead Technical Architect - Government Office for Science - G7
Government Digital & Data -
The Government Office for Science works at the heart of Government, ensuring policies and decisions are informed by the best scientific evidence and strategic long-term thinking. It's an exciting time to join the organisation; we have outstanding and high-profile positions providing you an opportunity to inform and influence policy-making and the systems for use of science and engineering across government. If you are highly motivated and looking for your next career challenge we want to hear from you.
Our mission is:
- Science advice mechanisms that are efficient, effective, speak truth to power and are embedded irreversibly in Government systems.
- Visible impact through both pro-active and demand-led science advice that is relevant, excellent, and delivered fit for purpose.
Further information can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-office-for-science
We strongly believe diversity of experience, thought, perspectives, skills, and background makes us a more innovative, welcoming Department, thus making better decisions and better delivering our objectives. We are actively seeking applications from every part of the community and particularly welcome applications from candidates of any age, background, disability, or from an ethnic minority background and any other protected characteristics. This will help us move to a workforce that reflects the people we serve to deliver better policies.
We are a friendly, inclusive team and emphasise personal development. We will ensure individuals with disabilities are provided adjustments to participate in the job application and interview process. We support your wellbeing by putting flexible working at the heart of our offer.; if successful, you will be able to discuss working arrangements with your new manager.
We maintain an internal surge capability of staff who may be called at short notice to support an activation of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Training and support will be provided. This is an excellent opportunity to develop crisis management skills.
Job description
This Lead Technical Architect role sits within our Technology and Science Insights unit. TSI provides high quality, independent evidence to inform strategic decisions on science and technology and long- term issues. We are a multidisciplinary team of digital professionals, analysts, data scientists, scientists, economists, and policy professionals. Our team is diverse, inclusive and focused on individual wellbeing. We are proud to support lots of different working patterns, locations and learning and development activity.
Our Technology Science Insights team acquire, process and analyse data from multiple sources to understand the UK's relative areas of strength and weakness in science and technology. The team maintain a cloud-based digital infrastructure (Microsoft Azure) to support end to end analytical work, including data acquisition, storage, processing and provision of aggregated outputs. We also have ambitious plans to broaden our digital capabilities to enable the GO-Science mission of putting scientific advice and evidence at the heart of government.
The post holder will work collaboratively to lead the technical design of our digital systems and services, and oversee the day to day management of them. The post-holder will lead and manage a small digital team, comprising Dev-Ops Engineering, Data Engineering and Tech Support.
The role aligns to the Lead Technical Architect Role from the Government Digital and Data Framework. A Lead Technical Architect can see the big picture, understanding our digital and technology landscape. They can clearly and effectively communicate the business needs that our digital infrastructure supports, developing great relationships with and collaborating with our central digital teams. They provide leadership, mentoring and support to other digital roles within the team, and they have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies, with experience in both software engineering and effective governance.
Person specification
Key responsibilities
Working in a multidisciplinary team, leading the technical design of our digital systems and services to support our analytical work, and overseeing the day to day management of our technical operations. This will include:
Ensuring the overall design of our systems are optimised to enable our data and analytical work, and managed with appropriate governance controls.
Liaising with our central digital and technical teams to ensure the smooth running of our local systems.
Providing leadership and support to other digital roles within GO-Science, including DevOps and Data Engineering.
GO Science maintains an internal surge capability of staff who may be called on at short notice to support urgent areas of work. There may be opportunities to volunteer to support this activity.
Essential Criteria
Proven experience as a Software Engineer, Data Engineer, DevOps/Cloud/Infra Engineer, or Technical Architect.
Experience designing modern, cloud-first for data platforms using a major cloud provider (Preferably Azure, but AWS and GCP are also welcome).
Experience in designing software architecture or cloud infrastructure architecture, including micro services, API management, data persistence technologies, and event-driven architecture.
Hands-on experience writing code in a high-level programming language (e.g. Python, C#, JavaScript, etc).
Solid understanding of relational databases and their internals (Preferably MS SQL Server).
Experience in introducing and championing best practices such as agile development, domain-driven design (DDD), test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD), and DevOps, fostering high-quality engineering culture within teams.
Experience designing modern, cloud-first architectures, leveraging cloud capabilities to design secure, scalable, and resilient applications, while mitigating security risks in public cloud environments.
Ability to see the “big picture” across multidisciplinary teams, the organisation as a whole, including views of other professions, and the ability to explain the big picture to all professions at all levels, ensuring mutual understanding and trust.
For Ref: Technical Skills (please see links):
Architecture communication: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#architecture-communication : Expert
Technical design throughout the life cycle: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#technical-design-throughout-the-life-cycle : Expert
Making architectural decisions: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#making-architectural-decisions : Expert
Turning business problems into data design: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#turning-business-problems-into-data-design : Practitioner
Data innovation: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#data-innovation : Practitioner
Desirable Criteria
Experience with Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, or Azure ML Studio.
Familiarity with modern data platform architectures such as Data Lakehouses and Fabrics.
We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible and recognise how important inclusivity is to achieve the best outcomes. We hope to attract applications from all underrepresented groups.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Communicating and Influencing
- Managing a Quality Service
- Making Effective Decisions
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Architecture communication: expert
- Making architectural decisions: expert
