Harvey Nash
Principal Architect
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Principal Architect
Global SaaS Company Salary: Up to £100,000 + 20% bonus Location: Open to all UK locations
About the Role A global SaaS education technology leader is investing in its next phase of platform and product evolution. With millions of users worldwide and a strong international presence, the business is transitioning toward an AI-enabled, platform-centric operating model.
They are seeking a Principal Architect to shape long-term technology direction across a multi-region environment strategically.
The Opportunity
This is a senior, individual contributor position at the core of their global technology function. Reporting to the Global VP of Technology and Operations, you will deliver architectural leadership across platforms, products, and services, ensuring:
- Consistency, scalability, and strategic alignment
- Non-delivery focus – technical governance, architecture strategy, and cross-functional alignment
- Enable teams to move quickly and effectively
- Oversee transformation for both UK and US technology teams, fostering greater cohesion, shared best practices, and a consistent global platform
Key Responsibilities
Architecture & Governance
- Define and evolve architecture principles, standards, and governance
- Lead architecture forums and key decision-making processes
- Drive consistency in tooling, design patterns, and integration approaches
- Enforce governance across security, scalability, resilience, and observability
- Oversee key technical risks, trade-offs, and governance frameworks
- Create pragmatic processes that support speed without compromising quality
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Technology Strategy & Roadmap
- Maintain the technical roadmap, aligned with product and business strategy
- Identify AI adoption, platform scaling, and modernisation opportunities
- Highlight technical debt and potential platform risks
- Evaluate emerging technologies and guide their adoption
- Balance global platform direction with regional needs
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Facilitate alignment between Engineering, Infrastructure, Security, Data, QA, and Product subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Lead complex discussions, providing actionable guidance on high-impact initiatives
- Support standardisation, reuse, and platform thinking
Global Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
- Build the technical bridge between UK and US teams
- Represent regional requirements in global platform decisions
- Collaborate with technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Translate technical concepts across distributed audiences
Continuous Improvement
- Champion engineering quality and create efficiencies
- Evolve standards, governance, and best practices
- Support AI-enabled innovation in development processes
- Mentor senior engineers and technical leaders globally
Must-Have Experiences & Skills
The ideal candidate will demonstrate:
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- 10+ years in senior architecture or technical leadership roles, preferably in modern SaaS or product-driven environments
- Strong expertise in software engineering, distributed systems, APIs, and cloud-native architectures
- Experience establishing and leading architecture governance frameworks across multi-team environments
- Ability to influence technical direction without direct management responsibility
- Track record in multi-region or international technology organisations
- Proven ability to define technical roadmaps and link technology to business outcomes
- Outstanding communicator: bridge of complex technical concepts and stakeholder engagement
- Proficiency in facilitating cross-team alignment and decision-making
- Solid grasp of security, scalability, resilience, and operational best practices
- Exposure to or passion for AI-enabled platforms
Why This Role Matters
- Shape architecture at global scale
- High-impact role with direct access to senior leadership
- Influence long-term technology direction (not day-to-day delivery exclusively)
- Pivotal role in AI adoption and platform transformation
- Join a truly impactful, mission-driven organisation delivering scalable technology for education innovation
Note: This is a newly created IC (Individual Contributor) role with no direct reports. The culture prioritises collaboration between on-site (UK) and off-site (US) teams with a "ONE TEAM" global philosophy.
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