Senior Solutions Architect (D+AI)
- Glasgow
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Define and govern the architecture of all Data & AI solutions across the enterprise.
- Ensure consistency, scalability, and security in data platform designs.
- Provide architectural oversight and guidance across multiple concurrent initiatives.
- Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to align data architecture with strategic objectives.
- Translate business needs into high-level solution architectures and PoCs.
- Influence and shape the enterprise data strategy and roadmap.
- Lead and mentor cross-functional technical teams, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration.
- Provide architectural guidance to cross functional technical teams – Data/AI engineers, Application consultants, solution architects.
- Promote Agile ways of working, contributing to sprint planning, backlog refinement, and iterative design.
- Design and guide the implementation of cloud-native data and AI solutions using AWS (e.g., Bedrock, Sagemaker, Glue, Redshift, Athena, EMR) and Azure (e.g., Azure OpenAI, Synapse Analytics, Data Factory, ADLS, Azure Purview).
- Architect solutions using Azure Synapse, including dedicated SQL pools for scalable data warehousing and analytics.
- Establish and promote CI/CD practices for both data and AI projects to ensure rapid, reliable, and repeatable deployments.
- Architect Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines and Agentic AI systems for prioritized AI usecases.
- Drive the design of AI guardrails to ensure responsible use of generative AI, including safety filters, prompt moderation, data privacy controls, and ethical usage policies.
- Design containerized data and AI workloads using Kubernetes and related orchestration tools.
- Deployment and maintenance of Informatica for metadata management, data cataloging, and stewardship frameworks.
- Collaborate with governance teams to embed governance into architectural designs.
- Act as a trusted advisor to business leaders, product owners, and delivery teams.
- Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences
- Influence decision-making through thought leadership and domain expertise Contribution to the evolution of the Iberdrola Group Support models, including operational and technical best practices
- Deliver solutions in accordance with best practice and Group Global standards for Architecture and ensuring appropriate design standards for the introduction of technology across, Service Desk operation, Request Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Configuration Management, Problem management, Disaster Recovery, Site Management and Reporting.
- Support the yearly IT budget and planning process in Scottish Power for technology alignment to business requirements
- Lead comprehensive product / application evaluation and selection activities.
- Prepare presentations, documents, diagrams, models, and other artefacts as required to communicate analysis, recommendations, or designs.
- Understand technology trends and the practical application of existing, new and emerging technologies to identify and develop new and innovative capabilities, working with vendors as needed to bring them to life
- Define high-level migration plans to address the gaps between the current and future state, typically in sync with the IT budgeting or other capital planning processes.
- Promote awareness and ensure compliance with group procedures.
- Participate in the range of company-wide IT activities: definition and implementation of policies and procedures.
- Significant experience of various system architectures, application technologies, data architectures, and infrastructures to support key IT initiatives.
- Extensive experience in data architecture and solution design on AWS or Azure.
- Proven track record of leading architecture for large-scale data and AI initiatives.
- Strong understanding of data engineering tools and services (e.g., Glue, Data Factory, Spark).
- Demonstrated experience leading technical teams and working in Agile environments.
- Hands-on experience with Informatica or similar data governance tools.
- Practical knowledge of generative AI, including RAG, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Agentic AI, and implementing AI guardrails.
- Experience designing and deploying containerized workloads using Kubernetes.
- Experience with Azure Synapse, including dedicated SQL pool architecture and optimization.
- Hands-on experience implementing CI/CD pipelines for data engineering and AI/ML workflows.
- Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills
- Demonstrable experience in an ability to research, analyse and recommend new technologies and software applications to meet the company’s needs.
- Experience of creating and maintaining technical architecture documentation.
- Exceptional communication and influencing skills, both verbal and written, with the ability to express complex technical issues in an easily understood manner
- Up-to-date knowledge on IT security industry trends, attack techniques, mitigation techniques, security technologies and new and evolving threats to the organization
- Excellent interpersonal skills in areas such as teamwork, facilitation and negotiation
- Strong leadership skills
- Understanding of IT network and security architectures
- Understanding and knowledge of IT standards and controls
- Ability to understand the long-term ("big picture") and short-term perspectives of situations and how they relate to achieving targeted business outcomes
- Ability to estimate the financial impact of technology alternatives
- Ability to apply multiple technical solutions to enable future-state business capabilities that, in turn, drive targeted business outcomes
- Ability to quickly comprehend the functions and capabilities of existing, new and emerging technologies that enable and drive new business designs and models
- Cloud certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect Expert).
- Experience with modern data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks).
- Experience working in regulated or data-sensitive environments.
- Significant experience of Technology Lifecycle across modern domains such as cloud, containers, application development is advantageos.
- Record of academic achievement, including some form of recognised qualification from further education with a strong technical degree.
- Good oral and written communication skills.
- Numerate and able to deal with finances for the purposes of managing budgets or contracts with suppliers.
- Willingness to travel by aircraft internationally on business.
- Must be a proven team player to work, promote and consolidate efficient team working relationships.