Head of Architecture

Head of Architecture

Commercial Technology & Change  

Permanent | Full Time

White City, London | Hybrid

Hiring Range: £95,000 - £110,000

Please note:  This is to assist candidates in assessing their suitability for the role. The range does not represent a longer term salary commitment for the role.

Your work matters to millions.

 Shaping culture is in the DNA of ITV. So, it’s not surprising that you’ll find us in every home in the UK, our productions are famous all over the world and we’re at the forefront of the digital streaming revolution. 

When you join us, you enter a fun working environment. With opportunities to learn, to grow and make a real difference. Small enough that your impact’s felt in the business, but big enough that your impact reaches millions of people. 

Come develop your skills, change TV and the course of your career. Don’t just watch it. Be part of it. Join ITV.

Your impact sends ripples.

The team

Millions of people use the products we build. We're customer focused, informed by data and have a product mindset, using state-of-the-art cloud-first technology. Iterating and evolving daily. In a fast-changing world, we not only make sure our systems work effectively but our Technology teams are spearheading the transformation to a digital-first business. There’s never been a more exciting time to join us. 

As part of the Advanced Advertising Technology team, the focus is  on data analytics, monetisation and financial governance. When you join us, you enter a fun working environment with opportunities to learn, to grow and make a real difference. Small enough that your impact’s felt in the business, but big enough that your impact reaches millions of people.

The role

Our Head of Architecture is responsible for shaping and harmonising our application architecture capabilities and solution designs across our engineering delivery teams.

You will be known as a technical authority and champion of best practice design and architecture standards. You will identify, define and nurture our architecture framework and introduce that to our application engineering teams. You will improve our general level of expertise and working culture, and be excited about helping people achieve their full potential. You will be expected to work with a high degree of independence and autonomy.

You are accountable and responsible for building and advancing our architecture competency and introducing and maintaining an efficient delivery capability over the long term.

This is a leadership, people oriented role and carries reporting line duties for a small team of architects who work across our delivery teams . In addition, and where required, you will define, own and execute supplier management and cost management duties.

 A key aspect of this role is to define and communicate a clear CT&C  architecture vision and what needs to be achieved and how that aligns with our product roadmap - set direction and establish goals that align with the CT&C's mission and objectives. 

 The role will entail but not be limited to:

• Build a diverse, supportive, excellence-focused architecture culture and discipline across delivery teams. Put in place and promote our CT&C engineering architecture guild and promote
• Develop our expertise and knowhow by coaching and mentoring across our delivery teams and establish personal training programmes 
• Line management of our architecture team: mentoring, mapping career pathways, training/upskilling and conducting performance reviews
• Expand our general awareness and understanding of related emerging technologies and best practice

• Own and deliver our architecture vision, strategy, and approach. Guide and support its implementation within our delivery teams
• Develop and implement AWS-based cloud solutions with a primary focus on security, scalability and appropriate performance throughput. Create and maintain secure architectural blueprints that adhere to industry standards and best practices and promote those across the team
• Direct key technical choices of related platforms, services and other tools, and facilitate their passage through technical governance 
• Working with other heads of department and individual scrum leads and teams to Oversee the physical arch / design, define and promote the architecture/infrastructure requirements, define and own the architecture/infra related governance and change management processes, assess system capacity requirements & manage the balance between stability and innovation, ensuring that changes do not negatively impact service reliability
• Establish an overall architecture culture and ways of working which nurtures and evolves; Robust technical best practices and standards, devSecOps mindset, practices and tooling, promote awareness and policy of design/arch quality and technical debt & imbed Agile ways of working
• Being the primary contact for the Group Architecture team and CT&C contributing and supporting their initiatives and processes
• Support the feature design and engineering processes and look to establish and improve ways of working across these teams 
• Cross functional collaboration with heads of department to align architecture and infra focused test strategies and practices to promote automated testing spanning both functional and non functional (security, scalability and performance etc)
• Align the architecture team’s goals and priorities with the engineering teams related service KPIs, incident KPIs, DORA metrics etc

Skills you’ll need (minimum criteria)

• Extensive experience preferably in a similar role or as a senior architect, leading teams and providing architectural direction. Ability to create and maintain a positive culture and drive results through others
• Experience having led and/or executed a design authority / governance process
• Hands on extensive experience with AWS services, including but not limited to EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, Step Functions, WAF, EventBridge, Cognito etc with a strong understanding of AWS networking, security, and identity management services
• Deep knowledge of AWS Well-Architected Framework and best practices for designing and building scalable, reliable, and cost-effective solutions on AWS
• Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like AWS CloudFormation or Terraform with strong programming/scripting skills in languages such as Java, C#, Python, JavaScript/Node, Typescript etc
• Ability to design highly available, fault-tolerant, and scalable systems that meet business requirements
• Deep understanding of microservices and serverless architectures, and how to build them out
• Proven track record in designing, implementing, and optimising cloud architectures on AWS, particularly serverless/micro service based solutions

Other things we’re looking for (key criteria)

• Fulfilled a mentorship role encouraging professional growth of engineer/architect personnel
• Strong communication and collaboration skills to work with cross-functional teams, executives, and stakeholders.
• Knowledge of the UK broadcast industry & broadcast/OTT advertising market 
• Knowledge of digital marketing and advertising industry
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect
• Good understanding of data governance, data privacy, and security principles.

ITV is for everyone.

ITV strongly encourages applications for this role from disabled people. As a Disability Confident Leader, if you meet the minimum criteria for a role and you have declared that you are disabled, we’ll guarantee to take you to the next stage* (minimum criteria above).

We're happy to discuss any support/personalisation you may need during our application and selection process as part of our reasonable adjustments. Drop us a line if you require anything at talkingcareers@itv.com. 

Find out more about applying with a disability.

* There may be a few exceptions where we are not able to take all eligible candidates to the next stage due to the volume of applications.

Because those who make an impact deserve to be rewarded for it.

ITV offers some great rewards and benefits including

• Flexible working with a range of options to suit everyone
• Generous holiday allowance, plus you can buy more
• Annual bonus opportunity
• Competitive pension contribution
• Save as you earn - with an opportunity to buy ITV shares
• Wellbeing and volunteering days plus a wide range of opportunities to help you live a balanced and healthy life 
  

More about our benefits