Lead Technical Architect

About The Role

Hippo Digital is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of public and private sector clients. We are recruiting for a Lead Technical Architect to support our mission. If you thrive at the intersection of strategy, design, and technology and want to mentor others, this role is for you.

• Help define and evangelise the architectural vision, standards, and best practices across the entire Hippo Digital delivery practice.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders, including C‑level executives, to guide their long‑term technical strategy and digital transformation initiatives.
• Lead complex and strategic technical engagements, providing architectural oversight and quality assurance.
• Mentor and coach our team of technical architects and senior engineers, helping them grow their skills and impact.
• Drive pre‑sales and business development activities, leading the technical response to bids, conducting technical due diligence, and shaping new opportunities.
• Contribute to Hippo Digital’s thought leadership through public speaking, writing, and community engagement.
• Act as a technical authority, making and communicating key architectural decisions that impact multiple projects or clients.

• Extensive, senior‑level experience as a Technical Architect, with a proven track record of leading large‑scale digital transformations.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and implementing complex architectures across one or more major public cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP), including proven experience with multi‑cloud strategies.
• A deep, strategic understanding of cloud‑native technology stacks, with hands‑on experience in containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes) or serverless deployments and advanced CI/CD tooling (Git Lab CI/CD).
• Exceptional skills in Infrastructure‑as‑Code, with extensive experience using Terraform for complex, repeatable deployments.
• A history of providing technical leadership and mentoring to other architects and engineering teams.
• Proven ability to influence and communicate effectively with C‑suite and executive‑level stakeholders.
• Experience in a consultancy environment, including contributing to pre‑sales, proposals, and business growth.
• Expert‑level knowledge of security, networking, and governance principles in a cloud context.

• Contributory pension scheme (Hippo 6% with employee contributions of 2%)
• 25 days holiday plus UK public holidays
• Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts
• Critical illness cover
• Life assurance and death in service cover
• Volunteer days
• Cycle‑to‑work scheme for avid cyclists
• Salary sacrifice electric vehicle scheme
• Season ticket loans
• Financial and general wellbeing sessions
• Flexible benefits scheme with options including private health cover, private dental cover, additional company pension contributions, additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days), wellbeing contribution, charity contributions, and tree planting.

At Hippo, we are dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent individuals, and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process and are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer, and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant.

Headquartered in Leeds, we have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London, and Bristol. Candidates must be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices (the contracted office will be your primary location). Because of the dynamic nature of consulting, you may be required to work on‑site at a Hippo office or at an in‑ or out‑of‑town client location for a number of days per week (client dependent).

We offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8,000 (terms and conditions apply).

£67,000.00 – £76,000.00 per year

Full‑time

Mid‑Senior level

Information Technology

IT System Design Services