Principal Architect

About Benchmark

Our award-winning, proprietary solutions cover regulatory, platform, and investment services and are designed to support advisers at every step of their journey – from starting and running a financial advice business more productively and effectively to accelerating its growth and realising its value.

We support high-quality financial advisers with our award-winning technology and support services. With our own financial advice business, we help families find solutions to meet their needs and aspirations, achieving peace of mind. By providing access to higher quality solutions, we make it easier for them to meet and exceed their goals.

Ensuring good client outcomes, with the client’s interests central to decision-making, is very important at Benchmark. Treating Customers Fairly principles are embedded within our organisation, and we take responsibility for embracing and promoting our duty of care to all clients, including those who may be more vulnerable than others.

The Base

You'll be based at our Schroders Business Campus near Horsham in West Sussex. It has high standards and an international reputation without being in the city: a big, countryside campus means life will feel a little different. We support our offices by using cutting-edge software and hardware, and our spacious campus facilities create a great working environment for the team. With an on-site restaurant, coffee shop, and gym, our campus has much to offer. Commuters can relax on our dedicated regular shuttle bus to and from Horsham’s mainline train station.

What You'll Do

This position is responsible for the design and assurance of both the current and future Benchmark Capital suite of applications, along with the associated processes, systems, and integrations. Your key responsibilities will include:

• Leading collaboration with product owners and product managers to determine functional and non-functional requirements for new features, software, or applications within our scaled agile environment.
• Developing high-level feature and enabler specifications at the value stream.
• Hands-on development of spikes and proof of concepts for emerging technologies.
• Promoting alignment with the Architecture Governance Framework and associated processes with fellow architects and principal developers/testers.
• Owning architectural, security, and engineering-related policies and guiding the design and implementation of cloud infrastructure in Azure.
• Defining development standards, workflow, and coding guidelines.
• Communicating architectural concepts and guidelines to business stakeholders, architects, and development teams.
• Overseeing progress of the Safe Train to ensure consistency from design through to delivery.
• Providing technical guidance and coaching to architects and principal developers.
• Defining and ensuring quality, security, modifiability, and extensibility of products and software.
• Defining and developing in-depth knowledge of the business processes, strategy, and products to align architectural designs accordingly.
• Collaborating with third-party vendors and assisting the business in pre-sales meetings, providing possible technical solutions.
• Staying updated with the latest industry trends and feeding insights back to the Architectural Runway.
• Working within an Agile environment and facilitating emergent design sessions with development teams.
• Providing cost and resource estimates for informed business decisions.
  
  

The Knowledge, Experience, and Qualifications You Need

• Proven experience as a solution/software architect with strong knowledge of .NET, ASP.NET, and Azure technologies.
• Experience in software development and coding in various languages, primarily C#.
• Excellent knowledge of software and application design, architecture, and patterns (SOLID, DDD, TDD, SOA, Service Design Thinking, and Distributed Systems).
• Proven experience implementing Event Driven Architectures.
• Good understanding of cloud design patterns and implementations in Azure.
• Experience integrating with third-party/external systems, along with appropriate integration patterns.
• Understanding of software quality assurance principles.
• A technical mindset with great attention to detail.
• High-quality organisational and leadership skills.
• Outstanding presentation abilities.
• Excellent interpersonal, time management, and communication skills (both written and oral).
• Customer-focused and capable of presenting ideas and concepts in user-friendly language.
• Flexible and willing to work outside core business hours as required.
  
  

What You'll Be Like

The ideal candidate is energetic and motivated, with a ‘can do’ attitude, possesses good analytical and problem-solving abilities, and is keen to take on a role in a department with development and advancement opportunities. Due to the unpredictable nature of the IT industry, it is also important for this person to be willing to expand their architecture, software, and IT knowledge and upgrade their skill sets as required. The role will involve working in a small team in an environment of open information-sharing to assure cross-training and cover within the department.

We're Looking for the Best, Whoever They Are

Our purpose is to provide excellent investment performance to clients through active management. Diversity of thought facilitated by an inclusive culture will allow us to make better decisions and better achieve our purpose. This is why inclusion and diversity are a strategic priority for us and why we are an equal opportunities employer: you are welcome here regardless of your age, disability, gender identity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, or any other protected characteristics.