Solutions Architect

Organisation: The Football Association
Salary: Competitive
Location: Burton Upon-Trent
Contract type: Permanent (Full time)
Closing date: 15 May 2025
Job Description: Set the bar for greatness...

The FA are excited to be searching for a Solutions Architect. This role provides a unique opportunity to support England teams in their pursuit of success at major tournaments, as a key member of the England Performance Technology team, within Digital Technology.

Working as part of the Digital Technology (DT) division, you will be responsible for specifying and overseeing the solution architecture and design for digital products within our England Performance Technology Team. As a Solution Architect, you will be responsible for ensuring that onshore and offshore technical teams understand the solution architecture and have a suitable framework in which to develop solutions within an Agile delivery framework.

You will work as part of the Solution Architecture Practice and closely with the Enterprise Architecture team to align and assure designs, technical roadmaps, software, quality and on the evaluation, selection and implementation of suitable Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) products as required. This will be achieved through the design and implementation of robust, scalable solutions that integrate and transform data from a variety of sources to drive the England teams forward.

Your mission will be to architect high-quality, future-ready technology solutions that serve coaches, analysts, and key stakeholders across our elite sports teams. You will play a pivotal role in shaping the application platform that underpins our performance workflows, ensuring it is reliable, efficient, and scalable. You will be responsible for ensuring that we apply modern cloud-based architectural patterns and work closely with engineering and enterprise architecture teams to help ensure optimal data delivery, system integration, and user experience designs, all while enabling a single point of truth for critical decision-making.

Working with the FA's core Helix platform solution, providing high-quality resources to support elite sports teams on the global stage. In this role, you will be expected to champion architectural best practice; lead by example in technical excellence; and support the continuous improvement of our platforms. Working in a fast-paced Agile setting, you will help embed a culture of adaptability and innovation, ensuring our data and technology solutions empower strategic, data-driven decisions across elite sport.

The contractual location of the role is based at St. George's Park in Burton-Upon-Trent, however, the in-office days will be flexible. You will be expected to travel to the contractual location based on the needs of the team and the business.

What will you be doing?

Enable Solution Architecture Advisory Services:

Lead on solution design of architectures, systems & applications, with a strong preference towards Google Cloud.
Lead and collaborate with the development team to ensure they follow the agreed solution architecture throughout the software development lifecycle. Participating in code reviews, technical planning, and sprint ceremonies.
Ensure that designs align with Enterprise Architecture and Product direction, ensuring that designs meet all functional and non-functional requirements.
Proactively keep up to date with the latest developments in identity improvement opportunities for The FA based on technical knowledge and industry trends.
Actively participate in the development and continuous improvement to help develop solution architecture as a practice.

Enable Solution Architecture Assurance Services:

Enable the technology strategic and product alignment within the England Performance Technology Team (WIN POD), by assuring the deliveries to the DT Leadership team's technology roadmap, FA business strategy and enterprise architecture strategic blueprint.
Define the governance of solution architecture, ensuring traceability between design decisions, standards, and business value.
Develop and maintain technical standards and best practices, leveraging industry standards and continually improving processes and techniques to help the performance and maintainability of applications.

Enable Solution Architecture Delivery Services:

Work with Product and Delivery to shape epics and features early in the lifecycle, ensuring feasibility, cost effectiveness and strategic alignment.
Deliver and oversee solution architecture documentation, ensuring it is kept up to date, clear and complete within the Enterprise Architecture Tooling (LeanIX) and the relevant project documents.
Enable integrations across Google Cloud and third-party COTS packages & solutions.
Lead and collaborate with third-party technical staff, including offshore teams, to ensure that development teams follow the agreed solution architecture.

Other:

Executes additional tasks as required to meet the FA's changing priorities.
Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.

What are we looking for?

Essential for the role:

Solution Architecture Certified or Degree educated or 10+ years in role, Solution Architecture experience.
Extensive experience as a Solution Architect.
Extensive experience providing solution architecture on cloud platforms.
Experience in designing mobile and web applications.
Experience in Agile delivery methodology, especially Scrum.
Strong problem-solving skills.
Effective communication skills and the ability to explain technical concepts to a non-technical audience.

Beneficial to have:

Solutions Architect Expert certification (on cloud platform).
Prior technology lead and 3-5 years of developer experience.
Experience in designing/developing solutions on the Google Cloud and integrations with other cloud stacks.
Working knowledge of sports or football systems.
Technology experience within Football or other sporting associations/stadiums.
Knowledge of integration design patterns.
Experience of working with offshore teams.
Knowledge of common enterprise software design patterns.
Knowledge and understanding of DevOps and Development best practices.

What's in it for you?

We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles, to achieve this we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.

We pride ourselves in offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:

Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encouraging you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
Free private medical cover.
A contributory pension scheme.
An additional 'Thank You' days leave, volunteering days as well as 25 days annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract.)
A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.

For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page, https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers

We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.

We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.

As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
How to apply: https://careers.thefa.com/jobs/vacancy/solutions-architect--0886-national-football-centre-st-georges-park/2533/description/