Senior Principal - Azure Platform Architect

Job Summary

The Principal Azure Platform Architect owns the technical design of the Azure Cloud platform, defining the reference architectures, patterns and standards that make solutions secure, scalable and consistent, and guiding engineering teams in applying them. The role provides design assurance across the Azure Cloud and Edge services, architects for reliability and resilience rather than treating them as later additions, and designs AI into the platform through reference patterns for AI-assisted delivery and intelligent operations.

The role sets standards and assures designs; it does not build. Engineering delivery sits with the platform engineering teams, backlog order sits with the Product Owner, domain target architecture and the architecture team sit with the Platform Architecture Director, and enterprise-level standards sit with Enterprise Architecture. Solution designs for major cross-domain initiatives sit with the Solution Architect in Enterprise Architecture.

Key Responsibilities

• Define reference architectures, patterns and standards for the platform, aligned to DPTF strategy and to enterprise architecture.
• Design AI into the platform, producing reference patterns for AI-assisted delivery and for intelligent, self-healing operations.
• Architect for reliability and resilience by design, so that platform SLOs and error budgets are achievable rather than aspirational.
• Provide design assurance and technical guidance to engineering teams, reviewing designs against the standards before build rather than after.
• Ensure platform solutions are secure and compliant, including GxP requirements where the platform supports regulated activity.
• Evaluate and introduce new technologies, measuring the result against architecture OKRs rather than adopting on vendor claim.
• Set architecture standards that supplier and managed-service solutions must meet, and assure their designs to the same bar as internal work.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture and Information Security on standards, roadmaps and exceptions.
• Increase pattern reuse across the platform, tracking where teams have adopted a pattern and where they have diverged and why.
• Reduce rework by intervening early in design, and evidence the reduction rather than asserting it.
• Advise the Product Owner and Platform Manager on the architectural consequence of roadmap choices, including technical debt being accepted.
• Hold the boundaries with the Platform Architecture Director on domain target architecture, the Solution Architect on cross-domain initiative designs, and the engineering teams on build.

Professional Qualifications

• Degree in a technology or engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience (e.g., Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems).
• Architecture certifications desirable (e.g., TOGAF, or recognised cloud or network architecture certification relevant to the platform).

Area of Specialisation

• Platform architecture in the relevant domain, covering reference architecture, patterns, standards and design assurance.
• Security and resilience by design, including AI reference patterns and GxP considerations where applicable.

Related Experience Required

• Overall 15 years and typically 6-8 years in technology architecture or senior engineering, including at least three years producing reference architectures or standards others build to.
• Proven experience as an Azure Cloud Architect
• Knowledge of networking, security, and compliance in cloud environments
• Experience deploying, configuring and managing services in Azure Cloud Platform including AI Services
• Experience running design assurance or architecture review, including declining designs that did not meet the standard.
• Track record of architecting for reliability and resilience, working to SLOs and error budgets.
• Experience designing secure and compliant solutions, ideally including GxP or another regulated context.
• Experience setting architecture standards that supplier or managed-service solutions had to meet.
• Awareness of AI reference patterns for assisted delivery and intelligent operations.

Skills/Background

• Ability to influence engineering teams without line authority, so that patterns are adopted rather than circumvented.
• Judgement about when to grant an architectural exception and when to hold the standard.
• Clear design documentation, since patterns are only reusable if others can follow them.
• Comfort challenging vendor claims and evaluating technology on measured outcome.
• Pragmatism about technical debt, making the cost visible rather than blocking delivery outright.
• Collaborative habit with Enterprise Architecture and Security, whose standards constrain the platform.

Skills

• Microsoft Azure Architecture
• Reference Architectures
• AI reference patterns
• Design Assurance
• Security Compliance
• Infrastructure As Code (IaC)
• Kubernetes
• Cloud Architectures
• Containerization

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