Solution Architect – Waitrose In Store Selling

As a Partner in our business your number one focus is to work collaboratively to create more value for our customers and our business. As a key function in the Technology & Change operating model, the purpose of Architecture is to identify the technical capabilities and changes that will enable the Partnership to successfully operate, adapt, and transform through technology. This role focuses on solutions to support our In-Store Customer and Partner experiences.

In this role you will:

Collaborate with cross-functional teams and business stakeholders to design end-to-end technology solutions that are effective, efficient, sustainable, and make a tangible difference to the business.
Collaborate directly with product and engineering teams to translate architectural designs into actionable backlogs, ensuring clarity on non-functional requirements such as performance and reliability.
Ensure architectural & engineering best practice is brought to bear during solution design to increase value, reduce delivery risk, and control technical debt
Help to inform the thinking of senior stakeholders to meet key business and technology challenges. You’ll drive technology options and choices, influence the product backlog and determine how the technology strategy will be achieved for our selling channels
Help ensure JLP delivers on its strategic aims and enables the Partnership to adapt and grow in a competitive and changing market

You will have the opportunity to develop and stretch personally and professionally to achieve your potential.

• Salary: Upto £85000 depending on experience

• Contract type: Permanent

• Working pattern/flexible working: Based at our Bracknell Head Office with a flexible hybrid model (typically 1 day per week in the office, primarily Thursdays, with ad-hoc visits as required by business needs), we support a healthy work-life balance

Key Responsibilities

• As a co-owner, actively share the responsibilities of ownership and support Partners and colleagues to have a voice in our business.

• Invest in your personal and professional development, utilising the opportunities available to you to develop your skills and capabilities.

• Engage with your function, supporting your teams to continuously develop and improve it.

• Embrace Agile working principles by demonstrating a flexible approach to working, joining missions as needed and/or supporting colleagues to secure the success of the mission.

• Leverage insight and internal and external networks, as appropriate, to keep abreast of key customer requirements, market conditions and trends, including technological advancements, and feed these into strategic thinking.

• Design and maintain an accurate logical overview of the entire system throughout product lifecycle/delivery, including the end users needing consideration in the customer experience design.

• Ensure the solution design accounts for realistic capacity and capability demands and constraints, and that design integrity and consistency across different project or agile streams is maintained.

• Design and deliver in accordance with architectural design parameters, that rationale for key technology solution decisions (including vendor/tech selection) are recorded and within relevant standards/guardrails, and that strategy & design governance is engaged  appropriately.

• Ensure that data flows and data governance for each solution are specified and recorded.

• Identify technical debt to be repaid by the sprint/solution, or debt proposed to be incurred.

• Provide support to engineering teams in the root cause identification and resolution of issues.

• Advise on phasing of delivery of a project.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need

• Customer centricity - Understands the end to end customer journey and puts every customer, both internal and external, at the heart of everything we do

• Critical thinking - Uses data and evidence to develop thinking and form reasoned judgements

• Empathy - Demonstrates the ability to understand, relate to and be sensitive to your team, peers, colleagues and customers and is in the habit of seeing the world through the eyes of others

• Enterprise thinking - Breaks down silos and works with a one Partnership mindset, making links and connections across functions and divisions where necessary to drive efficiencies. Cuts through competing agendas to drive activity and outcomes.

• Influencing decisions and stakeholders - Works collaboratively through active listening and assertive communication to reach win-win outcomes. Adapts style to influence stakeholders and keeps Partnership interest as the forefront of decision making.

• Experience of working across a wide range of solutions and change approaches appropriate for the Product / Business Area

• Experience of influencing stakeholders at Leadership and Working Group levels on a major transformation or in an area with a high level of change

• Experience of working across the IT lifecycle with the ability to balance long and short term outcomes given commercial drivers and available levers in uncertain environments.

• Experience adopting solution architecture methodology that proves demonstrable improvements in value, exploiting component re-use and/or reduced delivery risk.

• You must have a good understanding of current software architecture techniques and tooling including: Domain driven design, Microservices, API-first design, Cloud Native, Continuous Delivery & DevOps, Containerisation and PaaS on GCP or AWS and other data and integration technologies (Event streaming, data lakes etc)

Desirable skills/experience you may have

• Software engineering background

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We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.  

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.   

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect. 

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective. 

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.  

Important points to note:  

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.  

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.