Specsavers
Programme Architect
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Programme Architect
Senior Programme Architect (Retail Technology) – Specsavers
Are you a retail architect who gets excited about shaping the future of customer experiences at a global scale? At Specsavers, we're looking for a Programme Architect to play a critical role in one of our most important value streams, Retail.
This is an opportunity to influence how millions of customers interact with our brand, whether that's in-store, online, or through the increasingly connected experiences that sit between the two.
About the Role
This isn’t just a traditional architecture role—you’ll be our architectural leader for major global retail programmes, owning the end-to-end architecture vision. Your focus will be on ensuring technology solutions support both immediate business outcomes and long-term strategic goals.
You’ll work across complex transformation initiatives, engaging with business and technology stakeholders to deliver scalable, secure, and future-ready solutions that drive the evolution of Specsavers’ retail ecosystem.
We’re specifically seeking a candidate with strong retail architecture experience, including expertise in:
- Designing and delivering technology solutions across the retail landscape
- In-store retail platforms, point-of-sale (POS) solutions, e-commerce platforms, and composable commerce
- Customer journey design, payment ecosystems, and omnichannel retail
- Modern challenges of connected experiences that bridge digital and physical touchpoints
Responsibilities
You’ll lead the way in shaping Specsavers’ retinal technology landscape with the following key responsibilities:
- Architectural leadership across multi-workstream retail programmes
- Technical strategy for cloud-native, integration-led, and your-technology-enabled retail solutions
- Microservices, API-first design, and event-driven architecture implementation
- Future-proofing solutions using MACH principles, composable commerce, and real-time retail operations
- Frontend & modern tech expertise, including frontend frameworks and omnichannel UX integrations
- Technology risk management and impact analysis for global retail transformations
- Collaborative influence—acting as a trusted advisor to programme leaders and senior stakeholders
- Stakeholder bridging: communicating effectively between business needs and technical execution
- Architect mentoring: uplifting engineers, product teams, and emerging architects
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Key Technical Requirements
We’re looking for someone with experience in:
- Cloud platforms: AWS, Azure or Google Cloud (GCP)
- Modern architectures:
- Microservices
- API-first systems
- Event-driven systems
- Streaming & real-time retail data processing
- Composable commerce solutions and shopping experiences that adapt to evolving customer behaviours
- Recommendation & personalisation systems for omnichannel retail interactions
- Knowledge of retail tech trends, including:
- AI/ML-driven customer analytics
- Predictive forecasting for inventory and sales
- Sustainability & ethical tech considerations in retail
- Application modernisation and technology composability
Essential Skills
- A passionate retail technology advocate with deep hands-on experience in both e-commerce and in-store technology
- Senior leadership in complex transformations—particularly those integrating digital and physical retail
- Strong stakeholder facilitation and visionary thinking, translating business strategy into technical architecture
- Ability to elevate teams, driving a culture of architecture excellence and capability building
- Commercial acumen and visualisation skills to present complex concepts accessible to all
- Innovation mindset—looking beyond today’s solution to envision retail technology of the future
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Ideal Qualities
A few things that will help you thrive in this role:
- A collaborative leader who values diverse perspectives and drives inclusive thinking
- Direct problem-solving with technical rigor but also business pragmatism
- An ability to articulate architecture decisions clearly to engineers, business strategists, and executives
- Global scalability mindset—designed solutions that adapt to local contextualisation
Why Join Us?
At Specsavers, you’ll:
- Shape farm-changing retail experiences for millions of customers worldwide
- Act on quality global scale, working with cutting-edge technology
- Grow as a 𝚙𝚛𝚔𝚘𝚍𝚞𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚛, mentoring and supporting colleagues at different stages of their careers
- Influence the future of the industry; your impact will be both technical and business-aligned
- Join a company deeply rooted in customer-centricity, while working with creative and ambitious professionals
- Access professional development and thought leadership in retail innovation
Join us—and help define the future of retail at Specsavers!
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