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Solutions Architect

Solutions Architect (BBBH1729) Lincolnshire, England

Salary: GBP40000 - GBP45000 per annum


The successful candidate will be the lead application technician for IT; providing technical leadership within the solutions team, defining technical standards and maintaining IT assets, and leading the development of architecture to fit into the IT roadmap/strategy.
The successful candidate will lead the establishment of business requirements by building and maintaining relationships with key clients, working with them and the IT team to create a common understanding of business needs in order to design appropriate IT solutions to meet those needs.


They will create and maintain positive communications to ensure effective working relationships with clients, teams and colleagues.
This is a ‘hands-on’ position requiring solid technical skills, as well as excellent interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal). The successful candidate should also hold strong technical skills and work with a customer service ethic and can “get it done” personality.

Responsibilities

  • Define and maintain architecture principles, lead the definition of product roadmaps and IT standards to develop appropriate plans for periodic maintenance, upgrade, and replacement to deliver against the IT roadmap.
  • Lead solutions options analysis and product selection during the development of new and enhanced systems within IT, managing the alignment to the overall IT roadmap and recommend their adoption to the appropriate governance bodies.
  • Plan, design, prepare and produce documentation to support the development of a secure and efficient infrastructure and application environment
  • Provide third line response to IT incidents and problems, undertake fixes where possible.
  • Identify opportunities and produce solution designs to exploit existing technologies and re-use IT capacity across projects to optimise costs and efficiencies across the business.
  • Evaluate new technologies and methods that may be relevant to the business and recommend those which will be secure and which will enhance the ability of G4S and its clients deliver their strategy.
  • Build and maintain relationships with key business colleagues to gain a good understanding of business requirements to try to identify innovative ways of improving efficiency.
  • Maintain good relationships with external bodies/key suppliers to understand future technologies and identify what might work and be appropriate to G4S and Lincolnshire Police to deliver the business strategy.
  • Advise the IT Procurement, Contracts and Admin Manager on any supplier contracts within he the solutions domain.
  • Ensure that key suppliers provide a 3rd line response to IT incidents and problems, providing resolutions within agreed service levels.
  • Ensure that systems are not implemented that could cause G4S and its clients substantial loss of reputation.
  • Identify operational synergies or opportunities for supplier negotiation or rationalisation to reduce operating costs year on year.
  • Take ownership of relevant supplier relationships within the domain.
  • Represent G4S and its clients at relevant meetings, conferences, seminars, user groups etc. both at local, regional and national levels.
  • Provides out of hours assistance to users and colleagues by participating in the IT out of hours on call service.
  • Contribute to the IT budget setting process.
  • Follow the G4S Leadership Model to act as a role model and contribute to the delivery of high levels of staff engagement.
  • Determine skill requirements and staff assignment for current area of responsibility.
  • Responsible for the technical and career development of staff within the domain.
  • Ensure that staff work in line with Company and client policies, values, and processes.
  • Manage and mentor staff by following the performance management process.
  • Maintain a detailed knowledge of current practice in own area of expertise.



Skills and Qualifications

  • Detailed knowledge of the area of specialisation (eg. Architecture, applications)
  • Experience of developing IT architecture and roadmaps, and communicating these to relevant business and IT representatives.
  • Ability to understand/contribute to business strategy and develop and implement architecture models
  • Business analysis skills
  • Knowledge of development/ scripting languages and frameworks such as VB.NET, ASP.NET, AJAX; TSQL, xml, VB6 and Classic ASP
  • Experience of ETL Tools.
  • Develop software and work with Oracle and SQL databases
  • Be able to write and understand database queries
  • Ability to problem-solve
  • Ability to produce good quality documentation
  • Ability to communicate effectively and professionally
  • Ability to create working prototypes at a variety of levels of fidelity, independently or as part of a team
  • Has experience of mentoring technical staff and supporting their development
  • Strong influencing skills, and the ability to develop strong working relationships at all levels
  • Hold a full driving licence as travel to other locations will be required



Desirable Skills and Qualifications

  • Degree from a technology discipline
  • Experience of negotiating with suppliers and managing relationships.
  • Has a working knowledge of infrastructure, applications, and integration products from market leading suppliers eg. Oracle, SAP, IBM, Microsoft
  • Understand Prince2 and Agile project management methodologies
  • Write SSIS packages
  • Write stored procedures, triggers and functions for databases
  • Awareness of SCRUM Framework


Knowledge of Web Services (ASMX and WCF); JSON and JQuery

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