Senior Technical (Cloud) Architect (4776)

Job summary

Social Security Scotland is seeking a Senior Technical (Cloud) Architect to join our Cloud Architecture team and play a key role in designing, delivering and evolving our cloud-hosted platforms. Working within a cloud-first environment, primarily on AWS, you will provide architectural leadership to ensure services are secure, resilient, scaleable and cost-effective for both internal users and citizens across Scotland.

This is an exciting opportunity to influence a modern, cloud-native platform from an early stage, working closely with technical specialists and delivery teams to shape greenfield solutions, drive continuous improvement, and support the future growth of critical public services.

You will be responsible for defining and assuring cloud infrastructure architectures across AWS, including containerised platforms running on Amazon EKS. Providing technical leadership and design assurance, you will ensure solutions align with organisational standards and best practice, while supporting strategic technology roadmaps, cloud security, resilience and platform engineering initiatives.

As a Senior Technical (Cloud) Architect, you will design and assure digital solutions, translating complex business and technical requirements into effective, governed architectures. You will provide technical leadership, design guidance and reusable patterns, identifying opportunities to leverage common platforms, components and services.

Working across a range of architecture domains and technologies, you will collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. You will also work closely with specialist architecture domains, engineering, cyber security and delivery managers to ensure solutions are secure, scaleable, resilient and aligned to organisational standards and strategic objectives.

GDD Pay Supplement
This post is part of the Government Digital and Data (GDD) profession and currently attracts a £4,000 annual GDD pay supplement, which is paid monthly. Pay supplements are reviewed regularly.

Job description

• Present recommendations for technologies and improvements that support business and project objectives, based on analysis of requirements and system needs.
• Evaluate implemented solutions, identifying lessons learned, best practice and opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Contribute to architecture governance activities, promoting the adoption of architectural standards, best practice and effective ways of working.
• Contribute to the development of technical strategy and roadmaps within your area of expertise.
• Lead and assure AWS cloud architectures, including container-based platforms hosted on Amazon EKS, ensuring alignment with security, resilience, performance and cost optimisation requirements.
• Own and evolve the technical roadmap for services within a defined domain.
• Develop and maintain technical designs for the integration and implementation of technology solutions, working collaboratively across Government Digital and Data (GDD) and business teams.
• Ensure designs meet security, operational, resilience and performance requirements.
• Act as a Subject Matter Expert, understanding wider departmental, organisational and cross-government strategies to ensure recommendations and designs are aligned.
• Own one or more digital components, ensuring solutions align with broader architectural designs and strategic direction.
• Define cloud integration approaches, including APIs, event-driven services, identity integration and secure connectivity between cloud and enterprise platforms.

Person specification

Success Profiles
We use an assessment framework called ‘Success Profiles’ which lists the elements we test and provides detailed descriptions of each. Find out more about the framework here.

For this post, the following Success Profile elements will be assessed:

Experience

1. Demonstrable technical leadership experience, providing architectural direction and expertise on large-scale projects or complex programmes, fostering technical excellence, innovation and effective decision-making.
2. Experience designing complex cloud-based solutions, balancing business requirements, security, performance, resilience, cost and delivery constraints to achieve successful outcomes.
3. Strong technical expertise in AWS cloud infrastructure and platforms, including the design, implementation and management of AWS services, Amazon EKS and associated infrastructure technologies.

Behaviours

• Communicating and Influencing (Level 4)

You can find out more about Success Profiles Behaviours here

Technical / Professional Skills
This role is aligned to Senior Technical Architect within the Government Digital and Data Profession.

These skills will be tested during the Technical Assessment if you are successful at sift stage. They will not be assessed at application stage. Please review the following to understand the skill expectations: Technical architect - Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework

Benefits

Annual Leave - You will receive 25 days annual leave on joining us. This will increase to 30 days after four full years of service. You will also have 11.5 public and privilege days of leave every year. We also offer Flexi-time. Any extra hours you've worked can be taken as leave when suitable.

A Civil Service Pension - This job comes with a Civil Service pension. New joiners to the Civil Service will join a career average pension scheme as standard. Read more here - www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk.

Healthy work life balance - We can offer the possibility of full-time, part-time, term-time, and job shares. We also encourage flexible working.

Discounts - You can enjoy a vast range of retail, travel and lifestyle discounts through our benefit scheme.

Personal support for you - Our Employee Assistance Programme gives you confidential, independent information and guidance 24/7.

Volunteering special leave - Up to six days paid special leave a year for volunteering. We support our staff to help causes important to them.

Great locations - Our bright and modern offices in the heart of Dundee and Glasgow have been designed with staff in mind. Both locations are ideal for public transport.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Expected Timeline (subject to change)
Sift - w/c 7th September
In