Solution Architect

Holistic technical leadership across SN Digital 

We're looking for a Solutions Architect to join us and work closely with our engineering leadership, our product teams, and our stakeholders to address cross-cutting concerns, build shared capabilities, and grow the architecture practice within SN Digital (SND). 

About Us 

SN Digital (SND) is a department of SN Technology which is the technology division of Springer Nature. Our work touches upon all areas of the business; this role is a cross-domain role which will be involved with all of our business partners. 

There are about 340 of us in London, Berlin, Lisbon, Pune, New York, Madrid, Dordrecht and Heidelberg. We work in collaborative, multi-disciplinary delivery teams, developing digital products and services that answer user problems and support business goals. 

The work is interesting and meaningful. 

Our culture is collaborative and friendly. 

We encourage and support growth, both personal and professional. 

This is a terrific opportunity for friendly, inquisitive people who want to get involved in our work, who love to learn, who will embrace and develop our culture, and help make SND a place where people and ideas can thrive. 

We are intentionally looking to create teams that are diverse and inclusive. Diversity is the mix of culture, background, experience and personality that we all bring; inclusion is getting the mix to work better together. We want every member of our teams to contribute to our common goals while respecting each other's skills, knowledge and needs. 

Visit sndigital.springernature.com to learn more about who we are and what we do. 

You'll work with us to take a group of historically independent technology groups and build a single effective technology organisation, with a shared approach to software development and a coherent architectural approach. You'll lead the mapping of the existing architecture, the analysis of our current capability gaps, and in creating a vision for solutions architecture and plan to get there. You'll support the establishment of technical standards and ways of working and be a primary force in the implementation and evolution of these. 

You'll be collaborating with a wide range of colleagues across multiple locations and with different nationalities, backgrounds, and experience levels to deliver sustainable and innovative solutions to satisfy the needs of business and our customers. 

You will report to the VP Digital Delivery (SND). 

• You have experience in software development. 

• You have knowledge of software and system architecture and wish to grow in this space. 

• You are proactive and keen to work autonomously to identify, investigate, and solve problems. 

• You enjoy mentoring and supporting others, and growing an engineering community. 

• You like working collaboratively and optimise for team over individual success. 

• You're passionate about delighting and solving problems for our users, and champion them when considering solutions. 

• You view failure as a chance to share and learn. 

• You enjoy getting involved with every stage of the software development lifecycle. 

• You have experience working in an agile environment with shared code and production ownership. 

• You are comfortable pair programming and working in a trunk-based development environment, practising Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. 

• You have experience working with stakeholders and non-developers to come up with creative solutions to their problems. 

• You are comfortable working with remote working practices, and engaging with remote colleagues and teams. 

• You have a good command of English; collaboration is important in our day to day work, so being able to communicate your ideas and understand others is key. 

You'll work in collaboration with SND & engineering leadership, and our key business stakeholders to gain an understanding of the current landscape and the existing business priorities and strategy. 

You will: 

• Understand the key organisational structure of SN Technology and its component departments, and where SN Digital sits within this. 

• Understand our key business stakeholders and their product and business direction. 

• Work with the existing technical architects and technical leaders to start building a high-level knowledge of the various business domains and products. 

• Understand our core customer segments and how their experiences relate to our business priorities and challenges. 

• Identify and gain an understanding of the most critical areas in which to focus your attention. 

• Work with SND leadership to understand our strategic and tactical context. 

You'll be leveraging your understanding of the current context to begin to work on the most critical gaps and topics, and start building strong relationships with our teams, partners, and stakeholders. 

You will: 

• Proactively engage with our most critical areas in need of architectural guidance. 

• Build relationships with other technical functions with Operations, such as the AI Centre for Enablement and Project Data. 

• Collaborate with our researchers and experience strategists to inform our decisions with customer needs. 

• Communicate architectural matters effectively to non-technical stakeholders. 

• Provide technical and architectural support to our product and business stakeholders. 

• Start influencing and providing leadership in regards to architecture within SN Digital. 

• Promote and support a technical strategy to evolve our architecture into the desired vision. 

• Start advocating and where necessary enforcing cross functional requirements (e.g. GDPR, Security, Operability, etc.) 

• Ensure that a documentation culture is established and maintained for communication of architectural concerns, both within and across teams. 

You'll be the recognised leader for solutions architecture within SN Digital, be looking towards a vision for the future, and building a path to get there. 

You will: 

• Become a trusted architectural and technical partner with our product groups and stakeholders. 

• Establish a roadmap for building the architecture practice within SN Digital. 

• Have high-level knowledge and regular contact with all of our business domains across all areas of the business, including Research, Education, and Health & Professional. 

• Be an active participant in the company-wide architectural forum. 

Day-to-day Responsibilities 

You will need to be autonomous and proactive: you’ll self-organise and prioritise based on both business priorities and using your knowledge to determine the most critical topics to address. 

You will: 

• Be an active participant in group ceremonies and in the company-wide architecture community. 

• Foster a safe and collaborative technical community in SN Digital, growing technical knowledge and cultivating knowledge sharing in and across teams and disciplines. 

• Seek opportunities for improvement in our software delivery methods. 

• Continuously review technical options (e.g. tools, practices, principles, etc.) with other technical leaders. 

• Start working with teams to start ensuring we have solution design documentation. 

• Work with the engineering leads in the domains to clarify and uncover technical requirements and opportunities, provide architectural expertise, and unblock issues. 

• Build out integration patterns for solutions crossing business unit boundaries. 

• Engage with the enterprise architecture team on patterns & principles and technology selection. 

• Prioritise tasks to meet immediate needs, while remaining aligned with the strategic vision. 

• Work with teams and stakeholders to communicate and enforce architectural principles & requirements. 

• Advocate and enforce where necessary cross functional requirements (e.g. GDPR, Security, Operability, etc.) 

• Support teams in aligning on, planning, and rolling out architectural changes. 

• Mentor and help growing technical leaders, in collaboration with line management. 

• Seek continuous improvement in our product building capabilities by encouraging closer collaboration between the disciplines, other product teams, and stakeholders. 

• Ensure SND leadership have an overview of the architectural space. 

For all roles in all locations, we offer a competitive, industry-benchmarked salary.  

To find out more about the package provided at each location, please visit sndigital.springernature.com. 

To apply please upload a copy of your CV and cover letter, stating your salary expectations. 

Springer Nature employs more than 10,000 people in over 50 markets, and is home to some of the best-known names in research, educational and professional publishing.  

Working at the heart of a changing industry, we are always looking for great people who care about delivering quality to our customers and the communities we work alongside. In return, we provide opportunities to learn from some of the best in the business, with a culture that encourages curiosity and empowers people to find solutions and act on their instincts. 

We value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent. 

Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here. If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact our recruitment team so we can make all necessary accommodation.

Springer Nature Skills associated with this job profile include :

SN-Software Engineering & Systems Integration ​, SN-Product Development & Delivery, SN-Process & Systems Design​, SN-Product Design, SN-Strategic Mindset, SN-Manages Complexity, SN-Decision Quality, SN-Tech Savvy

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