Lead Technical Architect - ONS - G7

A lead technical architect works with multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking.

At this role level, you will:

• be responsible for leading the technical design of systems and services, justifying and communicating design decisions
• assure other services and system quality, ensuring the technical work fits into the broader strategy for government
• explore the benefits of cross-government alignment
• provide mentoring within teams
• provide leadership to other architects

Responsibilities:

• A lead technical architect works with multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking. You will be responsible for leading the technical design of systems and services and can justify and communicate their design decisions. 
• You will assure other services and system quality, making sure the technical work fits into the broader strategy for government.
• You will explore the benefits of cross-government alignment.
• You will provide mentoring within teams and provide leadership to other architects.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Making architectural decisions.  The creation of technical designs based and grounded in a variety of information ensuring alignment with corporate and government strategy whilst delivering on user needs.
• Technical design throughout the life cycle.  Designs need to evolve and grow as feedback is obtained throughout an agile lifecycle, the ability to iterate the designs to include this feedback directly impacts the successfuly delivery of services
• Architecture communication.  Designs are of value only when they can be clearly communicated and understood, without this validation and delivery of designs to realise their full potential is compromised.
• Architect for the whole context. Solving a problem in isolation of its impact a wider service or the organisation is of limited value, consistent approaches and understanding of the impact of the service being designed needs to be included and demonstrated.
• Community collaboration.  Working within knowledgeable communities consisting of experienced people in different fields provides a fantastic resource to draw on for innovation and efficient reuse of solutions.  Contributing to and participating with these communities is important in maintaining their value and effectiveness.
• Strategy design.  Understanding what the organisations strategy and vision are, contributing to them and informing the roadmap to achieving that strategy and vision means alignment of value and direction
• Agile working.  Embracing the agile approach, ensuring a high level goal is understood but ensuring an iterative approach to achieving that goal ensures we are delivering business value early whilst building solid foundation services that can be enhanced in later phases.
• Governance and assurance.  Embracing the value that governance and assurance adds to services means taking an active part in providing and not just following governance and assurance processes but delivering enhanced quality, consistency and security through their use.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Developing Self and Others
• Seeing the Big Picture

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Making architectural decisions
• Technical design throughout the lifecycle
• Architecture communication
• Architect for the whole context