Contract Principal Software Architect

Spectrum IT are working with an enterprise digital platform to recruit a Contract Principal Software Architect to support their widely used, real-world consumer technology platform. This is an OUTSIDE IR35 role, for an initial 6 months contract and will be hybrid working: 2 days onsite in Uxbridge per week.

This is a brownfield architecture environment. The successful architect will not be designing a new platform from scratch. Instead, they will be working within a live production estate, balancing existing technology, legacy decisions, technical debt, team structures and commercial priorities against the need to improve scalability, resilience, maintainability and customer experience.

The role therefore requires a pragmatic, delivery-focused architect who can understand where the platform is today, identify the areas that genuinely need to change, and work with engineering teams to make those improvements incrementally.

The Role

You will play a key role in defining and guiding the technical architecture underpinning the organisation's products and whole platform.

The focus will be on creating a coherent, scalable and maintainable technology landscape, while supporting the incremental evolution of existing systems. You will work closely with Engineering, Product, Platform and Technical Operations teams to make pragmatic architectural decisions that support both immediate delivery and longer-term platform strategy.

This is not a purely strategic architecture role. The successful contractor will need to be comfortable getting into the detail of system design, service boundaries, integrations, data ownership, cloud architecture and non-functional requirements, while providing technical direction across multiple engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

Define and maintain architectural principles, standards and target-state designs across the technology landscape.
Provide architectural leadership for complex initiatives, system changes and cross-platform integrations.
Define clear service boundaries, ownership models and integration patterns.
Support engineering teams in delivering scalable, maintainable and well-structured solutions.
Assess existing systems and identify opportunities to simplify, consolidate and modernise platform capabilities.
Support the evolution of legacy systems towards agreed target-state architectures through pragmatic, incremental change.
Make and guide technical decisions around distributed systems, APIs, integrations, data and cloud architecture.
Ensure security, resilience, observability, performance and scalability are incorporated into solution designs.
Identify architectural risks, technical debt and platform constraints, and establish appropriate mitigation strategies.
Provide technical review and architectural guidance for significant changes across multiple engineering teams.
Work closely with Engineering and Product leadership on major technical decisions and platform roadmaps.
Promote consistent architectural standards, engineering quality and technical decision-making.
Act as a trusted technical advisor across complex, cross-functional technology initiatives.
Support and mentor senior engineers and technical leads, helping embed architectural thinking within delivery teams.

Required Skills & Experience

Strong commercial experience working as a Software Architect / Principal Architect within complex software environments.
Proven experience designing distributed systems and modern software platforms.
Strong understanding of software architecture patterns, APIs, integrations and cloud-based systems.
Experience operating within Microsoft Azure or another major cloud environment.
Demonstrable experience defining service boundaries, ownership models and integration patterns.
Strong understanding of SQL and No

SQL data technologies and the architectural considerations involved in selecting appropriate data stores.
Experience working with transactional systems where data integrity, consistency, resilience and reliability are critical.
Strong understanding of non-functional architecture, including security, scalability, performance, observability and resilience.
Experience modernising or…