GIS Technical Architect

We are seeking an experienced GIS Technical Architect/Lead to join our engineering discipline where you will play a pivotal role in our delivery teams by shaping innovative geospatial solutions to meet clients' needs, aligning with their technology strategies, and championing best practices in GIS architecture.

Make a difference and advance your career by helping deliver some of the UK’s most important #tech4good projects, making the world a smarter, safer, cleaner, and healthier place.

You’ll join a talented team of dynamic and driven professional problem solvers; creative thinkers and solutions builders who thrive on helping clients meet the most exciting digital transformation challenges.

At a certified Great Place to Work® you’ll experience a dynamic and nurturing environment that rewards initiative and flexibility and enjoy a career path tailored to your own aspirations.

About Us

Founded in 1992, we are a successful, growing International digital transformation consultancy. We deliver multi-Queen’s Award for innovation winning platforms and services that support large-scale digital transformation. Our digital, data and technology solutions are used by globally recognised public and private sector brands operating in a variety of sectors including Civil Defence, Healthcare, Sustainable Environment and Land Asset Management, and Digital Democracy.

Key Accountabilities and Responsibilities

• A GIS Technical Architect/Lead oversees the architectural vision, technical design and implementation of advanced geospatial solutions to solve business problems and meet user needs. This includes:
• Working with clients and colleagues to design robust software and GIS architectures capable of meeting both functional and non-functional requirements.
• Achieving consensus on potential solution designs, technology choices, and the approach to delivery (including transitional approaches if required) with client technical and business stakeholders.
• Providing subject matter expertise on solution architecture concepts, including GIS and geospatial technology, to both Informed and client teams.
• Assuring the implementation of a solution across multiple increments remains aligned with the originally envisaged architectural vision and desired client outcomes.
• Representing your team and your client in technical governance forums (e.g. Technical/ Design Authorities).
• Influencing company-wide architecture best practices, standards, tools, and artefacts, including those specific to GIS technologies and leading efforts to drive adoption across the company.
• Being an active member of our Engineering discipline, promoting the professional development of others, building new capability, and sharing best practices in GIS and software engineering.
• Supporting the ongoing growth of Informed’s Engineering capability by helping to recruit technical staff and contributing to InformedACADEMY.
• Getting involved in events and industry forums, staying up to date with the latest technology, services, techniques and methods, including advancements in geospatial solutions and bringing the latest innovations into our work.

Requirements

As a GIS Technical Architect at Informed you will have:

• Experience and understanding of modern, open-standards based architecture patterns and concepts for enterprise-scale geospatial data and solutions (e.g., accounting for Integration, Security, Scalability).

• Experience collaborating with client technical stakeholders to define and agree solution architectures capable of meeting business and user needs, including geospatial requirements.
• An independent and objective perspective on geospatial technology, services and data.

• A proven track record in leading collaborative design and technology options assessments and architectural decision-making with clients.
• Detailed knowledge of architecting modern, innovative geospatially-enabled digital services, with familiarity in Earth Observation (EO) data and Geospatial AI being highly desirable.
• Demonstrated capability working with cloud and hybrid-cloud architectures, including hosting and scaling GIS services and data in these environments.
• Background in Agile delivery environments, delivering software and geospatial solutions in controlled increments (e.g., following Scrum, Agile Delivery phases, geospatial standards, etc.) and collaborating with team members from other disciplines (User Research, Business Analysis, Engineering, Testing etc.).
• Understanding of modern programming languages, distributed system architectures (e.g., microservices), cloud technologies, CI/CD pipelines and their application in GIS environments.

Desirable skills and experience

• Skilled in working with architectures that involve legacy systems integration and/or modernisation including GIS platforms and data stores.
• Experience developing transitional architecture roadmaps for geospatial solutions.
• Capability designing and implementing architectures that operationalise geospatial data science, Earth Observation (EO) data processing, and Machine Learning components.
• Expertise in evaluating existing solutions using structured assessment frameworks (e.g., Well Architected Frameworks) with a focus on identifying improvements in geospatial systems.
• Hands-on knowledge of designing and implementing software architectures capable of handling sensitive data including Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
• Commercial awareness with ability to optimise solution design and implementation to ensure a successful delivery.
• Ability to effectively deliver as part of multiple projects, concurrently across multiple teams, ensuring alignment and quality across GIS deliverables.
• Domain-relevant professional accreditations/certifications at an advanced level.
• Awareness of the GOV.UK Digital Service Standard and Technology Code of Practice, and their application to geospatial systems in public sector projects.

Personal Qualities

• You use your experience to lead, coach and mentor more junior team members.
• You should excel at conveying complex technical concepts in a non-technical manner and facilitate trusted working relationships with stakeholders.
• You should have the ability to work collaboratively, proactively and be flexible in responding to changing needs and priorities.
• Excellent work planning capabilities and time management skills.
• Ability to balance conflicting deadlines and priorities.
• A meticulous attention to detail.
• Punctuality, reliability, and a clear commitment to your role.

Our benefits package compliments our highly competitive salaries and our great working environment. We believe that our people should be properly rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of our business through a comprehensive and flexible range of benefits.

These can include:

• InformedACADEMY™ – We offer excellent career development opportunities through our award-winning personal and professional development programmes, including support with professional certifications.
• Industry leading health and wellbeing plan – We partner with several wellbeing support functions to cater to each individuals need, including 24/7 GP services, mental health support and physical health support.
• Hybrid working*
• Private Health Care Cover*
• Generous life assurance cover*
• Gym Membership*
• Monthly office lunch
• Onsite massage sessions
• 25 paid working days holiday per year plus bank holidays*
• Sabbatical Leave Scheme*
• Enhanced Maternity Leave and Pay*
• Enhanced Paternity Leave and Pay*
• Company Pension Contribution
• Profit Share Scheme
• Payment of professional subscriptions
• Generous referral scheme with no limits on the number of referrals

*Qualifying period applies

Culture

We are proud to nurture a workplace culture that is diverse, inclusive, rewarding, and egalitarian.

We strive to live up to our values of Innovation, Excellence, and Integrity by thinking about things differently, always doing our best, and acting in good faith at all times.

We’re a team of passionate problem solvers. We take pride in helping our clients accelerate and de-risk digital business change so that we can collaborate and codesign world class digital services that solve complex business and safety critical problems, particularly where place, location or geography are important.

Our workplace culture reflects how we go about our work, the type of work that we choose to do, and our commitment and contribution to the sustainable social, environmental, and economic development aims of the communities that we are part of.