Product Software Architect

Shape the technology behind our products and influence how we build for the future.

Work with talented Product and Engineering teams to solve complex challenges and make smart technical decisions.

Stay close to the technology, from prototypes and spikes through to real\-world solutions.

Bring your ideas, experience and technical leadership to a role where you can make a real impact.

Main Purpose of the Role:

The Product Software Architect provides architectural leadership across the Mail Metrics product software estate. The role helps Product delivery teams make fast, safe and well\-informed technical decisions while maintaining a cohesive view of the wider product architecture.

Working in partnership with Lead Developers, Engineers, Product, Quality and domain subject\-matter experts, the role shapes target\-state architecture, guides significant initiatives, establishes reusable software patterns and makes key technical trade\-offs and non\-functional requirements explicit.

Architecture is lightweight, pragmatic and delivery\-focused. The role contributes architectural direction, constraints, dependencies, risks and enabling work into the single integrated product roadmap, alongside customer, commercial, operational and regulatory inputs.

The Product Software Architect remains technically hands\-on, using spikes, prototypes, reference implementations and code\-level engagement to prove direction, reduce uncertainty and build credibility. The role develops distributed architectural capability through partnership, mentoring and constructive challenge, while holding clear decision accountability for material cross\-product, high\-risk or unresolved software architecture choices.

Location:

Hybrid role based from the Huddersfield or Leicester office, with flexibility to work remotely in line with company policy.

The role requires regular collaboration across the UK, Ireland and Poland and occasional travel to company, customer or partner sites.

Role Description:

Product Architecture Direction and Integrated Roadmap

• Define and evolve the target\-state software architecture for the Mail Metrics product estate across the Migrate, Run, Grow and Transform agenda.


• Maintain a cohesive architectural view across product components, integrations, data flows and shared capabilities.


• Identify architectural constraints, dependencies, technical debt, technology lifecycle risks and enabling work that may materially affect product outcomes or delivery.


• Provide clear architecture input into the single integrated product roadmap, helping Product make informed prioritisation and sequencing decisions.


• Translate product strategy, client needs, operational requirements and business goals into pragmatic architectural direction and deliverable change.

Initiative Architecture \& Technical Discovery

• Guide the architecture of significant product initiatives, making design options, assumptions, constraints and trade\-offs explicit.


• Lead or support architecture discovery across migration gaps, service improvements, product capabilities and strategic initiatives.


• Use spikes, prototypes and reference implementations to validate direction, reduce uncertainty and demonstrate viable approaches.


• Contribute directly to production software on an exceptional basis where targeted involvement will materially unblock delivery, reduce risk or demonstrate architectural direction.


• Take ownership of ambiguous technical challenges, engage the right stakeholders and drive decisions through to implementation.

Patterns, Non\-Functional Requirements and Assurance

• Establish lightweight software architecture principles, patterns and guardrails that enable teams to make safe and consistent decisions without unnecessary governance overhead.


• Identify and shape architecturally significant non\-functional requirements, including security, privacy, resilience, performance, scalability, availability, observability, maintainability, supportability and cost.


• Embed regulatory and compliance considerations into software architecture from discovery through delivery.


• Review significant designs and implementations proportionately to their risk and impact, maintaining coherence while preserving distributed technical design ownership.


• Ensure material decisions, assumptions, deviations and exceptions are consciously understood, risk\-assessed and recorded using Architecture Decision Records or comparable lightweight techniques.


• Make or arbitrate material cross\-product, high\-risk or unresolved software architecture decisions, escalating through appropriate governance where business acceptance of risk is required.

Product Technology, IP \& Build, Buy or Partner Decisions

• Define clear boundaries between strategic Mail Metrics software intellectual property, commodity capability and third\-party technology.


• Guide build, buy or partner decisions by assessing strategic fit, differentiation, time to value, total cost of ownership, integration complexity, security, operability, extensibility, vendor dependency and exit risk.


• Evaluate cloud, automation, AI\-enabled and third\-party technology options as potential approaches rather than predetermined solutions, recommending the option that best balances customer value, risk, cost and architectural fit.


• Collaborate with Infrastructure and Data Architecture colleagues so software designs align with wider strategies while preserving clear accountability between disciplines.

Architecture Knowledge, Technical Leadership \& Influence

• Maintain a purposeful, right\-sized product architecture repository using C4, Architecture Decision Records and other appropriate techniques to show context, boundaries, significant decisions and future direction.


• Establish simple documentation expectations that support consistency, traceability and knowledge sharing without duplicating detailed engineering documentation.


• Mentor Lead Developers and Engineers in architectural thinking, patterns, trade\-off analysis and non\-functional considerations, developing decision\-makers rather than centralising authority.


• Facilitate cross\-component technical discussions where changes span product or service boundaries.


• Influence technical direction through credibility, clarity of reasoning and partnership.


• Communicate architectural options, constraints and recommendations clearly to Product, Technology, senior stakeholders, clients and partners.


• Define and monitor a small set of useful architecture effectiveness measures, such as decision lead time, recurring exceptions, reduction of material technical risk and reuse of shared capabilities.

Essential Skills

• Significant experience designing, delivering and evolving complex production software in a software engineering or architecture role.


• Strong architecture experience across distributed, cloud\-based, integration\-heavy, event\-driven, messaging\-heavy or high\-volume transactional systems.


• Experience shaping significant product initiatives by identifying architectural options, constraints, trade\-offs and non\-functional requirements.


• Experience evolving established software estates through migration, compatibility, coexistence and progressive change.


• Practical experience using C4, Architecture Decision Records, spikes, prototypes or reference implementations to guide decisions and reduce uncertainty.


• Experience working with Lead Developers, senior engineers and Product delivery teams where technical design ownership is distributed.


• Experience evaluating build, buy or partner options and presenting clear recommendations based on customer value, risk, cost and trade\-offs.


• Experience setting pragmatic technical standards or guardrails and conducting proportionate architecture or design reviews.


• Experience incorporating security, privacy, resilience or regulatory considerations into software design and delivery.


• Strong understanding of distributed software architecture, including component and service boundaries, APIs, integration, messaging, event\-driven patterns and data ownership.


• Strong knowledge of high\-volume asynchronous processing and the trade\-offs involved in designing reliable distributed systems.


• Strong understanding of cloud\-native, containerised and orchestrated application environments and their implications for resilience, scalability and operability.


• Ability to identify and balance non\-functional requirements across security, privacy, resilience, performance, scalability, availability, observability, maintainability, supportability and cost.


• Strong software engineering capability, including the ability to engage credibly in code\-level discussions and contribute directly where targeted involvement adds material value.


• Ability to create purposeful architecture artefacts without unnecessary process or duplication.


• Ability to distil complex choices into clear options, trade\-offs and recommendations for technical and non\-technical audiences.


• Strong facilitation, mentoring, influencing and stakeholder communication skills.


• Professional fluency in written and spoken English.

Essential Behaviours

• Acts as a collaborative technical leader who develops decision\-makers rather than centralising authority.


• Builds credibility through sound technical judgement, practical experience and direct engagement with engineering challenges.


• Challenges unnecessary complexity and seeks simpler approaches that improve delivery speed and product outcomes.


• Balances strategic direction with pragmatism, favouring evolutionary improvement where appropriate.


• Is open about assumptions, uncertainty, technical debt and architectural risk.


• Takes ownership, embraces ambiguity and drives decisions to a clear conclusion.


• Works constructively across organisational and technical b

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