Solution Architect - IT Infrastructure

nottingham, england, United Kingdom

We are looking for Solution Architects to join Technology Services at Boots Nottingham Support Office.

Reporting to the Lead Solution Architect, your role will be to produce IT infrastructure high-level designs and proposals in response to internal customer requests and project demands.

You will ensure customer requirements are clearly understood and then work with the wider Architect community, service owners and subject matter experts to deliver cost effective, supportable end-to-end high-level designs, adhering to enterprise strategy, roadmaps, standards, security and service capability.

Who we are

International Technology & Advanced Analytics (IT2A) is a multi-national function of Walgreens Boots Alliance based in the UK, Europe, Asia, South America and the USA. We leverage emerging technology and robust data to transform our pharmacy and retail offerings, improve experiences for customers and patients and enhance operational effectiveness for team members. Partnering with some of the finest tech providers and utilising a cutting-edge tech stack, we support two of the UK’s most trusted and established brands - Boots and No7 – in personalising their customer interactions. We’re an innovative team of specialists spanning security, hosting, architecture, software engineering, networks, project delivery and more. A proud equal opportunity employer, we passionately embrace team member diversity and provide a positive and inclusive working environment for all.

About the role

Key responsibilities

Produce high-level designs, concentrating on the consumption of existing platforms and services. Working to make sure the agreed business requirements and desired outcomes are achieved in-line with strategy and architecture, are cost effective, deliverable and supportable

Ensure high-level designs are understood by everyone in the project team, including managed service partners and other shared services who produce low-level designs. Ratify alignment of low-level designs and build work with the high-level design. Re-approval must be sort for any divergence through change control and any ensuing technical debt captured and managed

Provide technical consultancy and leadership throughout the whole project life cycle. During construction, if issues are encountered, work with the project manager and build teams to formulate alternative approaches and mitigation plans to keep delivery goals on track

Participate in governance bodies, for the approval of high-level designs, along with quality assurance in divisional and broader group IT governance

Be an active team member of the Solution Architect team and support colleagues through peer reviews, compliance checks, due diligence, and help promote a ‘right first time’ culture

Contribute to the creation and maintenance of design patterns, standards, and design blocks to facilitate wider consistency and promote re-use of design elements, delivery at pace, quality assurance and cost efficiencies

Technical skills required

Strong understanding and functional experience in a mix of any of these areas:

Public Cloud technologies – Azure Cloud. Full range of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS products including Azure App services, Azure SQL and Cosmos DB

Microsoft 365 – Full product stack and supporting technologies, including Cloud PC

Microsoft Enterprise product suite – Windows Server, AD, ADFS, NPS, DHCP, DNS, Cluster services Network solutions –Switching, routing, wireless, load balancers, VPN, MPLS WAN, SD-WAN, QoS, ACI, Azure ExpressRoute

Security solutions – Email, Endpoint, Web, firewalls, IPS, IDS, WAF, PKI, VPN, MFA and other identity management services

Server infrastructure – Virtualisation, storage, managed backup, hyper-converged platforms

Experience in Unix and Linux – AIX and Red Hat Enterprise

Databases platforms – Oracle, DB2, MS SQL, MySQL, operating in clustered environments

SAP – SAP infrastructure architecture across multiple SAP components and versions operating across SAP RISE, Azure Cloud and on-premise. Associated experience of high availability patterns, resilience, backup and recovery

Client mobility – Mobile device and app management, InTune, AirWatch

Telephony and collaboration –VOIP platforms across an international setting. Microsoft Teams voice integration

What you’ll need to have

Broad knowledge and experience of solution areas including infrastructure, transformation and migration, security, business analysis, applications, integration, service management and understands how all these interact to arrive to an end-to-end solution

Ability to rapidly understand the business, commercial and technical requirements to write clear and concise technical high-level designs is vital

Excellent interpersonal, communication and influencing skills are essential. Must be able to lead workshops and reduce complex ideas to simple terms and express rationale for decision making to both a technical and non-technical audience

Be looking for a challenging workplace and capable of working in a high-output environment. Has a high degree of self-management and motivation to prioritise multiple tasks and deadlines with competing demands

Experience with complex projects and programmes, requiring highly available, disaster recovery and business continuity compliant systems in a large international enterprise

It would be great if you also have

Knowledge of formal methodologies and frameworks – TOGAF, ITIL, AGILE

Working knowledge of data protection and compliance standards of PCI-DSS and GDPR

Experience of middleware technologies –Software AG

Containerisation, microservices and orchestration technologies – Kubernetes, Docker

Knowledge and experience of identity federation and authentication – oAuth2, OpenID Connect or SAML

Our benefits

Boots Retirement Savings Plan

Generous employee discount plus enhanced discounts for Boots brands, Boots Opticians and Boots Hearingcare

Excellent onsite facilities including staff shop, opticians (including free eye tests for team members), gym, cafeteria and outdoor seating

What’s next?

If your application is successful, our recruitment team will be in touch to arrange an interview and to answer any initial questions you have. If you have not been successful on this occasion, you will be notified by email.

We are always open to discussing possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you, including job share and reduced hours. If you require additional support as part of the application and interview process, we are happy to provide reasonable adjustments to enable you to be at your best.