Product Architect - Digital Hub - #1703033

Division – Data, Technology and Innovation

Department – Digital Delivery Hub

Salary – Leeds ranging from £72,100 to £117,100 per annum and London £79,300 to £128,800 (salary offered will be based on skills and experience). Please note that the primary location is Leeds, but London may be viable on agreement.

About The FCA

The FCA regulates the conduct of 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. Follow this link to find out more About the FCA.

The team

This is an opportunity to contribute to a new strategic initiative within the FCA. The Product Architect sits within the Product Group and plays a key role in defining and overseeing the architecture and service design for a specific product group. This includes shaping the product roadmap and ensuring quality assurance across architectural decisions, technical designs and deliverables such as systems engineering documents. The role ensures all outputs align with enterprise platform and integration strategies, standards and patterns, working closely with cross-functional teams to deliver robust, scalable and aligned technology solutions.

What will you be doing?

• Shaping product roadmaps by defining scope, priorities and delivery timelines, including integration, solution design specifications and resolution of technical debt
• Designing end-to-end architectural solutions—spanning high-level outlines to detailed designs—that align with enterprise standards and address capacity, ITSCM, security, licensing and integration requirements
• Reviewing and assuring the quality of architectural artefacts from internal teams and external suppliers to ensure alignment with business, non-functional and strategic requirements
• Identifying opportunities for product innovation and proposing designs that deliver measurable business benefits within the boundaries of the product roadmap
• Supporting integration and functional testing to validate solutions against business acceptance and readiness criteria, while managing associated risks
• Contributing to communities of practice through thought leadership, coaching and mentoring to enhance architectural capability across DTI
  
  

What will you get from the role?

• An opportunity to grow as a leader in a dynamic, forward-looking technology environment, with a focus on developing team management skills
• The chance to contribute to meaningful work that has a direct and positive impact on financial markets and wider society
• A collaborative and inclusive culture, working with a diverse team of professionals with a broad range of skills and experiences
• Recognition for your contributions to high-impact projects, with clear pathways for career progression based on performance and leadership
• A supportive environment that values innovation, continuous learning and professional development
  
  

Which skills are required?

We are a Disability Confident Employer; therefore, disabled people or individuals with long-term conditions who best meet the minimum criteria for a role will go through to the next stage of the recruitment process. (To learn more about the Disability Confident Scheme Click Here).

Minimum

• Extensive experience as a Solution Architect, with experience developing product strategies, roadmaps and architectural delivery plans for large-scale (£5M+) projects and applying formal architectural methodologies and frameworks, such as TOGAF or other architecture modelling tools
• Experience delivering end-to-end projects or products using various development methodologies (Prince2, RUP, Scrum, Agile) in collaboration with internal teams, third-party vendors, or offshore suppliers
• Experience with the design and implementation of micro service architectures and REST API based integration
  
  

Essential

• Strong commercial awareness with the ability to evaluate supplier proposals and promote cost-effective, value-driven solutions
• Broad solution architecture expertise across Data, Application and Infrastructure domains
• Proven ability to drive innovation within a product stack while ensuring alignment with Enterprise Architecture (EA) standards
• Proficient in using Unified Modelling Language (UML) for architectural design and documentation
• Solid understanding of technology trends, industry standards and best practices in delivering IT products and services, with experience managing architectural risk throughout the project lifecycle and operational phases
  
  

Our Values & Diversity

We are proud to be an inclusive employer, and our ambition is to cultivate a culture for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation and delivers better regulation.

Within the workplace you will have access to various employee resource groups which aim to promote and achieve a healthy work / life balance and support our diversity ambitions.

Did you know? 50% of our Executive Committee were the first in their family to attend university.

Benefits Of Working At The FCA

• 28 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Hybrid working (work from home up to 60% of your time)
• Private healthcare with Bupa as standard
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35) 
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary 
• Income protection as standard
  
  

We also have a competitive flexible benefits scheme which gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifestyle.

We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements.  Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours and job shares.  We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we can explore what might work best for both sides.

Follow this link to see what life is like at the FCA - Life at the FCA

Application Support

We are dedicated to removing barriers and ensuring our application process is accessible to everyone. We offer a range of adjustments to make your application experience as comfortable and straightforward as possible.

If you have an accessibility need, disability, or condition requiring changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter using the details below and they will be happy to discuss this further with you.

Useful Information and Timeline

• This role is graded as Technical Specialist - Regulatory
• Advert Closing: Midnight 20 May (please submit your application no later than 11.59pm on Monday 19 May)
• CV Review/Shortlist: 20 May
• First Interview: w/c 02 and 09 June
• Final Interview: w/c 16 June
  
  

Your recruiter will discuss the process in detail with you during screening for the role, therefore, please make them aware if you are going to be unavailable for any date during this time.

Got a question?

If you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact Sonika Suryadevara at [email protected].

Applications must be submitted through our online portal. Applications sent via email will not be accepted.