Princes Liverpool are looking for a Lead Platform Architect ideally with a Solutions Architect background to join the team. This is an opportunity to work for one of the UK's leading FMCG businesses within our impressive Head Office which is based in the Royal Liver Building in the heart of the city. This position involves working with Stakeholders within the Business to achieve the delivery of Princes Technology strategy.
PurposeThe Lead Platform Architect performs a critical role in leading the delivery of the Princes technology strategy. This role offers the opportunity to devise and deliver the evolution of technology platforms across the enterprise.
Reporting to the Technology Delivery Manager, this role will have primary responsibility for the delivery and integrity of IT platform solutions across the Group. The role will build key partnerships across IT delivery, IT operations, IT security, and business teams.
The role will hold line management responsibility for a team of two Platform Engineers. The post holder will also act as a further senior technical point of escalation for the Platform Engineers, guiding them with handling priority incidents that have been escalated from the internal support teams.
The role will support and develop the Technology strategy in conjunction with the Technology Delivery Manager to ensure that there is a consistent & professional approach to delivering technology projects and a strong focus on regular delivery of preventative maintenance activities.
The role forms part of a business which recognises the need for change with major growth ambitions and as part of which is highly likely to expand both in the UK and overseas. The role will need to be flexible and provide support as required to capitalise on whatever opportunities arise.
The role requires expert level understanding of general technology, End User Computing, systems, data and processes across multiple system platforms.
Working HoursThis is a Hybrid working position with the opportunity for some home based working.
Benefits* 14.5% Pension (Princes 9.5% contribution)
* 12.5% Company bonus
* £5591 Cash Car Allowance
* Hybrid working and core hours
* Life insurance
* Private Medical Insurance (single, partner and family)
* Flexible holiday policy - option to buy or sell 5 days per year
* 25 days holiday + bank holidays
DimensionsThe Lead Platform Architect has primary responsibility for the delivery of all key business IT platforms - those services that are widely used by every employee within the organisation on a daily basis. The role has the following scope:
- 2500 users globally
- Royal Liver Building Head Office
- 11 UK Manufacturing sites
- 4 European Manufacturing sites
- 2 Mauritius Manufacturing sites
- 200+ servers
- 150TB+ data storage
Internal contacts can include members of the organisation at all levels, from junior staff to Chief Executives. Regular contacts will be Senior Managers and both Departmental and Group Directors. External contacts will include representatives from our key technology partners who provide equipment, service and support. These contacts will be for the negotiation of contracts and services, as well as resolution of day-to-day issues and the definition of future strategy
Principal Responsibilities
- Technology Advancement – Progress investigations and proof of concept development into new technology that may be an advantage to Princes. Stay abreast of technology developments and present opportunities to the wider Princes IT Teams and Business.
- Project Delivery – Take primary responsibility for the development and management of key business platforms, providing expert-level technical implementation knowledge and skills to deliver high-quality key system platforms on time and in-budget through to the point of transition to internal support teams.
- Line Management – Line management of a team of two Platform Engineers who hold a dual project delivery/support escalation responsibility.
- Support Escalations – Receiving and responding rapidly to escalated support incidents from internal support teams to ensure disruption is limited and key business systems are restored promptly in the event of failure. This will require regular knowledge-transfer to ensure escalations are kept to a minimum level.
- Security – Responsibility for each platform’s security concepts, in agreement with the Security Architect and Technology Delivery Manager.
- Business Continuity - Agree recovery time and recovery point objectives with key business stakeholders to ensure service recovery within a disaster recovery scenario. Provision of Incident Reports in the event of service outages, to include root cause analysis and preventative measures to ensure incident recurrence is minimised.
- Tools, Techniques and Controls – Ensuring that changes to system architecture, platforms and software are managed through the appropriate change processes, and mechanisms to track changes are maintained. Progression of escalated support incidents and problems through the Service Desk toolset.
- Support and Maintenance - Propose, develop and execute plans for upgrading and maintenance of technology platforms, liaising with third party suppliers of solutions and software in the provision of escalated support for technology solutions. The role may at times be required to perform duties outside of normal working hours.
