Platform Architect

Description:

The Platform Architect is a senior, customer-facing architecture role within the customer's multidisciplinary System Design Team (SDT). The SDT operates on behalf of the customer, maintains the end-to-end Solution Architecture and provides governance and assurance of solution designs produced by delivery organisations. The role contributes infrastructure and platform expertise across private cloud, virtualisation, container platforms, compute, storage, networking and shared platform services. It works closely with customer stakeholders, security assurance personnel and delivery partners to help ensure that designs are coherent, secure, supportable and aligned to the wider solution. The role provides authoritative advice within its assigned scope, while respecting the decision rights and accountabilities defined by the customer. The emphasis is on architecture governance, design assurance, cross-domain coordination, and technical influence. Delivery suppliers remain accountable for producing their supporting Service Designs, High-Level Designs (HLDs), Low-Level Designs and implementation artefacts.

Working Relationships

Customer architecture leadership and other SDT disciplines, including security and applications.
Security assurance staff, risk owners, accreditors / assurance authorities and operational stakeholders.
Solution-provider architects, service designers, engineers, programme teams, test teams and service management.
Architecture boards, design reviews, technical working groups and SAFe delivery forums.

Key Responsibilities

Infrastructure and Platform Architecture

Contribute to the development and maintenance of the infrastructure and platform viewpoints within the end-to-end Solution Architecture.
Provide architecture guidance across VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), NSX, compute, storage, backup, recovery, networking, management and shared platform services.

Design Assurance and Governance

Review and assure supplier-produced Service Designs, HLDs and supporting artefacts against agreed requirements, policies, standards and architectural direction.
Work constructively with supplier designers from an early stage to clarify intent, identify dependencies and reduce avoidable design rework.

Security, Identity and Risk

Apply Secure by Design principles and support continual security assurance throughout the capability lifecycle.
Work with security specialists, risk owners and accreditors / assurance authorities to ensure infrastructure designs provide appropriate evidence for security and risk decisions.
Assess platform integration with IAM, IDAM / IGA, PAM, authentication, federation, directory services, service identities and break-glass arrangements.

Platform Engineering and Programme Support

Provide architecture guidance for container platforms such as Red Hat OpenShift and VMware Tanzu, where applicable to the solution.
Promote repeatable and supportable infrastructure-as-code and configuration-management practices using tools such as Ansible, Terraform and controlled Git-based workflows.
Contribute to integration, test, migration, transition and operational-readiness planning, including cross-service dependencies and acceptance evidence.

Customer and Stakeholder Engagement

Provide clear infrastructure and platform advice to customer stakeholders and architecture leadership within the scope delegated to the role.
Facilitate workshops and design reviews, presenting options, risks and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences.

Essential Requirements

Substantial IT infrastructure experience, including significant experience in infrastructure, platform or solution architecture roles.
Experience generating, reviewing and assuring Service Designs and HLDs in complex, multi-supplier or regulated environments.
Credible customer-facing experience, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders, architects and engineering teams.

Technical and Architecture Knowledge

Strong knowledge of enterprise infrastructure architecture across compute, storage, network, backup, recovery, virtualisation, platform management and observability.
Strong VMware VCF and NSX knowledge, including platform lifecycle, resilience, management and workload considerations.
Understanding of Kubernetes and container platforms, such as OpenShift or VMware Tanzu.
Understanding of infrastructure automation and configuration management, including tools such as Ansible and Terraform, Git-based workflows and CI/CD controls.
Familiarity with IAM, IDAM / IGA, PAM, authentication, federation and enterprise directory services.
Experience of Secure by Design, security assurance and technical risk management.

Personal Attributes

Strategic perspective combined with sufficient technical depth to assess designs and challenge supporting evidence.
Ability to operate effectively where responsibilities are shared across customer, SDT and delivery-supplier organisations.