Principal Technical Architect - Ministry of Justice - G6

Location

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, Scotland, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

The Role

We’re recruiting for a Principal Technical Architect here at Justice Digital, to join the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), working within the Chief Architect function and under the Chief Data Architect.  You will provide technical architectural leadership across our data platforms, integration services and shared data capabilities, helping ensure that data can be shared securely, reliably and appropriately across the Ministry of Justice.

OCTO sets technical direction across the organisation. It defines standards, shapes shared platforms and ways of working and supports teams to build and operate systems that are secure, reliable and sustainable. 

Justice Digital’s data capabilities are undergoing significant transformation as part of the MoJ Data Strategy. This includes:

• The evolution of the Justice Data Platform
• Adoption of Data as a Product and federated data ownership
• Strengthening data integration patterns across services and domains
• Improving governance, security and operational maturity across the data estate

As a Principal Technical Architect, you will ensure that the technical architecture for data and integration is coherent, scalable and aligned to wider Justice Digital strategy, enabling teams to publish, integrate and consume data safely and consistently.

We are a flexible organisation, and we understand that people can't always work 5 days a week or might have responsibilities that sometimes clash with standard office hours. We work as flexibly as we can, including offering part time hours, so if in doubt please do get in touch. If you're the right candidate we will do our best to work around you.

This role aligns against the Principal technical architect role from the Government Digital and Data Framework.

To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025

Our Tech Stack

We use a broad range of technologies and are looking for people with strong practical experience in modern software delivery environments.

• Cloud platforms: AWS
• Infrastructure as code: Terraform
• Containerisation and orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes
• Source control and CI/CD: GitHub, GitHub Actions
• Languages: Python
• Data technologies
• Workflow orchestration: Apache Airflow
• Data transformation: dbt
• Metadata, cataloguing and lineage: DataHub
• Data access governance: AWS IAM, AWS Lake Formation
• Development environments: Kubernetes-orchestrated development environments including VS Code, RStudio and JupyterLab

You will be supported to deepen your knowledge of our platforms once in post.

Our work is largely open source. You can explore repositories at:
https://github.com/ministryofjustice

Key Responsibilities

• Define and champion the technical architecture for data and integration across Justice Digital, working with the Chief Data Architect and Chief Architect to align with overall technology strategy.
• Provide architectural leadership across multiple programmes, platforms and delivery teams where data and integration are critical.
• Define and assure integration patterns, including APIs, event-driven architectures and data sharing mechanisms.
• Mentor, coach, and line manage lead and senior technical architects
• Oversee and guide technical teams, influence technical choices and seek out opportunities for digital transformation.
• Look for opportunities to collaborate and reuse common components, communicating with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Assure digital services built by our civil service and managed service delivery teams, ensuring system quality, and that the technical work fits into the broader strategy for the agency and department.
• Build and maintain an inclusive culture across the technical architecture community.
• Manage recruitment and allocation of technical architects to teams, identifying gaps in capability, ensuring a good balance of skills and seniority.
• Take part in Technical Design Authority, representing both the interests of Ministry of Justice and your own area of responsibility

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Person Specification

Essential:

• Expert knowledge of modern cloud-first architectures, and how to build applications to take advantage of the opportunities they offer.
• Experience in designing software architecture, including multi-tier web applications, micro services, API management, data persistence technologies, and event-driven architecture in public cloud environments with a strong understanding of how to design secure, scalable and easily managed access control and identity patterns as part of those systems.   
• Able to identify and mitigate security risks at team and organisation level when designing and operating in a public cloud environment.
• Experience of architecting digital services that align to a wider organisational technical strategy that meets business needs.
• Ability to translate technical concepts between multidisciplinary teams and other senior stakeholders so they are understood by all.
• Expert at fostering, evolving and mending relationships and communicating with senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience of leading technical teams in the successful delivery of complex outcomes, working across disciplines and a wide range of technical and non-technical professions.