Senior Cloud Architect

About Finova  

Finova is the UK’s largest financial services technology provider, supporting one in every five mortgages nationwide. Our agile, cloud-native solutions enable over 60 banks, building societies, specialist lenders, equity release providers and a network of 2,400+ brokers to stay ahead in a competitive market.   

Built on open architecture and backed by deep industry expertise, our platform is designed to scale. Each year, we process over £50 billion in loans, manage nearly £50 billion in savings, and support the digital servicing of more than 650,000 UK borrower accounts. 

Be part of a team that’s driving innovation, enabling growth and shaping the future of UK lending.   

For Lenders  

Finova offers a flexible, modular technology suite designed to help lenders move faster, scale efficiently and deliver standout digital experiences.   

Financial Institutions use Finova to launch products faster, process applications up to 50% more efficiently and reduce operational costs — all while staying fully compliant in a fast-moving market.  

About the Role

We're looking for a Senior Cloud Architect to own the design, security, and evolution of our cloud infrastructure. As a SaaS fintech company handling sensitive financial data, we need someone who thinks cloud-native and compliance-first — someone who can architect systems that scale confidently while meeting the rigorous standards our customers and regulators expect.

You'll work across AWS, Azure, and GCP, defining the multi-cloud strategy that keeps us resilient, vendor-flexible, and secure. This is a hands-on leadership role: you'll set architectural direction, mentor engineers, and stay close enough to the implementation to make sure the details are right.

What You'll Do

Architecture & Strategy

• Define and maintain the company's multi-cloud architecture strategy, ensuring consistency across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments.
• Design highly available, fault-tolerant systems that support SaaS delivery at scale.
• Evaluate and select cloud services, tools, and vendors aligned with business and regulatory needs.
• Create and maintain architecture decision records, reference architectures, and cloud design patterns.

Security & Compliance

• Architect infrastructure to meet SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS, and other financial-industry compliance frameworks from the ground up — not as an afterthought.
• Design identity and access management (IAM) policies, encryption strategies (at rest and in transit), and network segmentation models.
• Partner with Security and GRC teams on audit readiness, risk assessments, and remediation planning.
• Implement infrastructure-as-code guardrails, policy-as-code (e.g., OPA, Sentinel), and automated compliance monitoring.
• Lead threat modeling exercises for new services and architectural changes.

Engineering & Collaboration

• Guide engineering teams on cloud-native design principles, microservices patterns, and secure development practices.
• Review infrastructure pull requests and provide architectural oversight during sprint cycles.
• Mentor mid-level and junior engineers on cloud best practices and security thinking.
• Collaborate with Product, Data, and DevOps teams to align infrastructure decisions with the product roadmap.

What You Bring

Must-Have

• 7+ years in cloud engineering or architecture roles, with at least 3 years focused on architecture.
• Deep hands-on experience with at least two of AWS, Azure, and GCP; working familiarity with all three.
• Strong track record designing and operating infrastructure within compliance-heavy environments (SOC 2, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, or similar).
• Expertise in infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Solid understanding of container orchestration (Kubernetes, ECS/EKS/AKS/GKE), service mesh, and API gateway patterns.
• Experience with zero-trust network architectures, secrets management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager), and cloud-native security tooling.
• Ability to communicate architectural trade-offs clearly to both engineering peers and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice-to-Have

• Experience in fintech, payments, banking, or insurance.
• Relevant certifications: AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, GCP Professional Cloud Architect, CCSP, or CISSP.
• Familiarity with data residency requirements and multi-region deployment strategies.
• Experience with FinOps practices and cloud cost governance.
• Contributions to open-source infrastructure projects or public writing on cloud architecture topics.

What We Offer:

Hybrid working: At Finova, we believe the best outcomes come from working together - and having the flexibility to work in a way that suits both our people and our business.  We operate a hybrid working model, with most teams spending around three days a week in the office and with our customers.  This time together helps us stay connected, collaborate more effectively, and solve complex challenges as a team.  We also know that flexibility matters. Our approach is designed to support a healthy balance, combining in-person collaboration with the freedom to work remotely where it makes sense. 

Holiday: 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, bank holiday trading and holiday purchase options, the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world for up to 4 weeks per year.

Looking After You: Life Assurance, Group Income Protection, Private Medical Insurance, a pension scheme via Salary Exchange, an Employee Assistance Programme, and access to a Virtual GP.

Family-Friendly Policies: Enhanced maternity and paternity pay, as well as paid time off for fertility treatments and pregnancy loss.

Extra Perks: Cycle to Work Scheme, discounts on shops, restaurants, and gym memberships, free fresh fruit daily, and opportunities to join colleague networks and social groups. 

Giving Back: One paid volunteering day annually and the Give-As-You-Earn scheme to support your favourite charities.

Equal Opportunity Statement 

We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. If you’re passionate about this role but don’t meet all the criteria, please reach out, we’d love to discuss how your skills and experiences align with our needs.