Location: Hybrid / Ilkley LS29 8FL, UK
job type: Permanent / Full-time
Sector and subsector: Technology | Systems & Infrastructure
Salary: Competitive salary
SmartSearch’s distinctive Anti-Money Laundering verification software protects our clients by offering the most advanced and comprehensive features available from an AML provider.
SmartSearch has grown rapidly by fostering an incredibly collaborative and supportive culture. As we continue our ambitious growth plans, we will strive to remain a truly exciting, rewarding, and unique place to work.
HOW WILL YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
We are looking for a Cloud Architect who will be responsible for defining, designing, and contributing to the delivery and continuous improvement of secure, scalable, resilient, and cost-effective cloud solutions that support our applications, services, and wider technology strategy.
Reporting to the Head of Cloud Engineering, you will work closely with software engineering, SRE, operations, security, and business stakeholders to shape cloud architecture standards, create reference architectures, review technical designs, and ensure cloud environments follow best practices for security, reliability, performance, compliance, and cost optimisation.
This is an architecture‑led role with a strong hands‑on element. You will be expected to contribute directly to cloud platform improvements, infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, automation, Kubernetes environments, and cloud‑native services, helping teams turn architectural designs into practical, maintainable, and operationally effective solutions while driving ongoing improvements to cloud platforms, tooling, and engineering standards.
VARIED DAY TO DAY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Defining and maintaining cloud architecture principles, standards, patterns, and best practices
- Designing secure, scalable, resilient, and cost-effective cloud solutions to support business‑critical services
- Contributing directly to the implementation and improvement of cloud infrastructure, platforms, automation, and tooling
- Creating and maintaining reference architectures for cloud platforms, application hosting, networking, security, and observability
- Providing technical leadership and practical engineering guidance to software engineering, SRE, operations, and security teams
- Reviewing cloud solution designs to ensure alignment with security, compliance, reliability, performance, and cost requirements
- Designing and evolving Azure landing zones, network topologies, identity models, and cloud governance controls
- Implementing and improving infrastructure as code to support repeatable, auditable, and well‑governed deployments
- Supporting the design, implementation, and improvement of CI/CD and GitOps‑based delivery approaches
- Working closely with development teams to ensure applications are designed, deployed, and operated effectively in the cloud
- Advising on and contributing to the use of Kubernetes, cloud‑native services, managed platforms, and modern application architectures
- Defining and supporting strategies for monitoring, logging, alerting, backup, recovery, and disaster recovery
- Supporting capacity planning, scaling strategies, resilience improvements, and cost optimisation initiatives
- Troubleshooting and helping resolve complex cloud infrastructure and platform issues where architectural input or hands‑on support is required
- Producing clear documentation, including architecture diagrams, design decisions, standards, runbooks, and operational guidance
- Assessing new cloud technologies and recommending practical improvements to platforms, tooling, and engineering practices
- Contributing to continuous improvement of cloud architecture, platform strategy, technical governance, and engineering standards
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR IN A CANDIDATE?
- Strong experience designing, building, and operating cloud solutions in production environments
- Strong knowledge of cloud platforms, particularly Microsoft Azure
- Experience defining cloud architecture standards, patterns, principles, and best practices
- Ability to contribute hands‑on to cloud engineering activities, including infrastructure, automation, deployment, and platform improvements
- Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure, platform services, networking, security, resilience, and scalability
- Experience designing and contributing to secure cloud landing zones, network architectures, identity models, and governance frameworks
- Strong working knowledge of infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform, Bicep, or Ansible
- Experience with modern application architectures, including microservices, containerised workloads, APIs, and event‑driven systems
- Experience designing, supporting, and improving container platforms such as Kubernetes, AKS, and container registries
- Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows, deployment strategies, and release practices
- Strong understanding of cloud security principles, identity and access management, compliance, and risk management
- Ability to design and contribute to backup, recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery strategies
- Experience supporting architecture and delivery decisions across multiple environments, including development, test, staging, and production
- Ability to work with technical and non‑technical stakeholders to translate business requirements into cloud solutions
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear architectural and operational documentation
- Desire to continuously learn and stay current with evolving cloud technologies, architecture patterns, and industry best practices
ADVANTAGES
- 5+ years’ experience in cloud, platform, DevOps, infrastructure, or software engineering roles
- 2+ years’ experience in a Cloud Architect, Solution Architect, Platform Architect, Senior Cloud Engineer, or similar role
- Experience with Azure‑native services such as AKS, App Services, Azure SQL, Azure Storage, Azure Monitor, Key Vault, Azure Policy, and Azure Networking
- Experience designing and contributing to cloud landing zones and multi‑subscription or multi‑environment Azure estates
- Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, Azure Monitor, or cloud‑native equivalents
- Working knowledge of CI/CD, GitOps workflows, deployment strategies, and release governance
- Strong automation and scripting skills using Bash, PowerShell, Python, or Go
- Experience managing cloud costs and implementing cost optimisation strategies
- Understanding of reliability engineering, availability, scalability, and performance considerations in cloud platforms
- Experience contributing to technology roadmaps, architecture reviews, or technical governance forums
- Familiarity with architecture documentation methods such as diagrams, decision records, standards, and design reviews
WHAT IS LIFE LIKE AT SMARTSEARCH?
- We are a multi‑award winning Tech company with an aspirational mentality
- Some of our most recent recognitions include: named in the renownedRegTech100 list for 2024, listed in theTop 100 Fasted Growing Tech CompaniesbyNorthern Tech Awards2024as well as being namedTechnology Provider of the YearbyCorporate Finance Awards 2024
- We have beenGreat Place To Work Certified since 2022
- There are excellent progression opportunities due to our growth and you will have personal development goals, regular feedback and support
- We are a diverse and inclusive team committed to promoting Diversity & Inclusion and Social Responsibility. Through our DE&I group, charitable initiatives and support for local schools, we actively foster a positive Impact on our community
COMPANY BENEFITS
- 25 days holiday rising to 30 with each year of service
- Private Medical Insurance covering dental and optical
- Company pension scheme
- Life Assurance – 4x your annual salary
- 1 day paid volunteering per year
- Enhanced maternity / paternity offerings
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Cycle to work scheme
- Access to a gym
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