Enterprise Architect (Application) - Companies House - G7

These are exciting times at Companies House as we continue our transformation journey, developing new digital services that are used nationally at scale. Our services are built using the latest technology and cloud services, with a focus on microservice development on AWS. This role is a unique opportunity to shape how we develop and secure our digital services. Working within an embedded agile delivery structure you will be empowered to define the processes and technology we use to produce software.

The Enterprise Architect (EA) will work with multiple projects and programmes, providing guidance and analysis, working with our other architects to create and refine roadmaps and blueprints for secure service delivery.

The EA Function is the technical authority for on and off premise technologies and will work with the Heads of Professions, as well as the various Lead architects, to ensure projects and programmes align with Companies House’s emerging architecture and its strategic direction. They will work with projects and programmes of all scales to support delivery of end-to-end architectures, and implement designs based on requirements, strategic drivers, best practices, and guidance.

The EA has the primary responsibility for ensuring that designed solutions are fit for purpose, meet business needs, and are aligned to Companies House strategic direction. This will be done through a combination of buying and building a range of services, and then ensuring they integrate correctly.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join our organisation at the right time and have a real impact on the development of our services. Leading highly experienced teams of developers you will ensure that their capability is constantly increased though mentoring and training.

Come and help us as we embark on a complete redesign of our digital services and culture!

Companies House offers a flexible and welcoming culture that promotes a healthy work life balance as well as a proactive approach to wellbeing that allows us to be our best at work.  We recognise that people are the key to our success so offer a fantastic benefits package including flexible working with no core hours, 30 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 1 privilege day as well as enrolment into the Civil Service Pension scheme with a contribution rate averaging 28%.   

Find out more about what a great place Companies House is to work

Further information on Companies House Services   

Job description

We love designing new services for the benefit of our users. We need someone to lead the way, to help us improve, and challenge the status quo for the benefit of citizens. CH leads the way in providing an open and transparent company register. Our register is searched billions of times a year and valued at £10 billion to the UK economy. The information we provide supports millions of business decisions every day.

We’re looking for an Enterprise Architect whose responsibilities will include: 

• Develop and maintain the enterprise application architecture, ensuring alignment with business goals and IT strategies.
• Provide leadership on application design principles, patterns, and technologies to support scalable, efficient, and secure solutions.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define application standards, roadmaps, and best practices.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and their potential impact on the application landscape.
• Ensure integration across systems and services, delivering seamless and interoperable solutions.
• Act as a technical advisor, guiding project teams and ensuring adherence to architectural standards.
• Identify and mitigate risks associated with application architecture, including performance, security, and maintainability.
• Developing the principles and strategy for the Enterprise Architecture across all CH systems
• Encouraging the team to be innovative, seeking to use new technologies
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to Technical Architects
• Design, communicate and manage the evolution of CH services through architecture governance.
• Facilitate communication across multiple agile teams to identify strategic requirements and dependencies.
• Be involved in the CH technical community, identifying and championing good practices.

This is an exciting opportunity in digital services, designing and delivering quality services to our users. By helping us to shape our services, you’ll have the opportunity to be at the forefront of digital transformation in government.

Person specification

We're looking for the following experience, which will be assessed at sift and at interview. Please refer to the 4 experience bullet points in bold (below) when writing your personal statement, including working examples to demonstrate your level of skill.  

Experience: 

• Significant experience as a technical architect with a specialisation in application architecture.
• Strong understanding of enterprise systems, microservices, APIs, and cloud-native design principles.
• A broad IT background with experience preferably in solutions or enterprise architecture roles where you will have gained experience of large-scale deployments particularly in cloud technologies.
• Demonstrable experience of working with business and technology stakeholders to translate business problems into technical designs. Creating optimal designs through iterative processes, aligning the system requirements and organisational objectives with the user needs. Designing systems characterised by high levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity. 
• Focused approach on strategic alignment of technical design and architecture to meet business growth and direction.
• Demonstrable experience of providing internal consultancy on potential uses and appropriateness technologies and driving benefits from these technologies.
• Experience of translating technical concepts relating to software engineering, delivery management and service management so they are understood by all.
• An understanding of how technical governance works with wider governance (such as budget). Assurance of corporate services by understanding important risks and mitigating them through assurance mechanisms.
• Able to justify decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact, and complexity. Building consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly independent and diverse stakeholders.

Technical experience: 

• Expertise in application development methodologies and technologies (e.g. Enterprise Java).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) and their application development services.
• Knowledge of data integration patterns and middleware technologies.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to balance strategic thinking and hands-on implementation.
• Practical knowledge at many levels of the auth, web stack, from front-end code down to infrastructure and networking.
• Knowledge of open-source principles and technologies.
• Designing security architectures and building security into all aspects of service design.
• Experience in agile and DevOps environments.
• Familiarity with containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
• A view of technology as an enabler of great digital services.
• Designing security architectures, implementing technical security processes and an awareness of emerging security threats.
• Leading Threat Modelling workshops.
• Experience of working in an agile environment and experience with agile methodologies such as TDD, Scrum, Kanban.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills

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

• Containerisation
• Architectural design
• Modern systems development
• Cloud-based architecture