Platform Architect

We're looking for a high-calibre Platform Architect to join our team in a permanent capacity to spearhead our long-term infrastructure modernization and governance strategy. This is a "hands-on" architectural leadership role; you'll be the primary custodian of our technical roadmap, responsible for defining high-level strategy and leading the end-to-end execution of complex migrations, automated lifecycle management, and security hardening.

As a permanent pillar of the team, you will be the driving force behind enforcing AWS Well-Architected standards across our entire multi-account estate. You will treat the platform as a product-continuously identifying and eliminating technical debt, from decommissioning legacy directory services to upgrading out-of-support libraries. By building and scaling the automated deployment pipelines and robust guardrails that underpin our operations, you will ensure our "seriously digital" future is built on a resilient, secure, and world-class foundation., * Architectural Ownership: Define and maintain the long-term architectural vision for the Wickes cloud platform, ensuring it scales with the business.

• Governance & Guardrails: Design and enforce automated preventive and detective guardrails (SCPs, AWS Config) across the AWS Organization to ensure continuous compliance.
• Identity Modernization: Lead the strategic decommissioning of AWS Active Directory and manage the lifecycle of Microsoft Domain Controller upgrades.
• Automated Lifecycle Management: Establish frameworks for automated patching and version upgrades for AWS Lambda and RDS to ensure zero-touch maintenance.
• Engineering Excellence: Champion Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/Ansible) and CI/CD (GitLab) best practices, mentoring engineers to improve overall code quality and deployment velocity.
• Security Hardening: Proactively manage CVEs by identifying and upgrading out-of-support tools and provider libraries.
• Stakeholder Partnership: Collaborating with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into scalable architectural patterns.

You'll be an expert AWS Architect with extensive hands-on experience designing and operating production-grade AWS environments at scale. You'll have a solid background in traditional infrastructure (compute, storage, networking) applied to cloud-native architectures. As well as this you'll have skills and experience in the following areas:

• Automation Mastery: Expert-level proficiency in Terraform and Ansible, with a strong focus on modular, reusable code.
• CI/CD Specialist: Deep experience building and optimizing pipelines, preferably within GitLab.
• Identity Expert: Strong working knowledge of identity protocols such as OpenID Connect, SAML and hands-on experience with Microsoft Active Directory and AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management).
• Observability: Hands-on experience with Datadog for enterprise-wide monitoring and proactive alerting.
• Agile Tooling: Proficient in using JIRA for task management and Confluence for technical documentation and ADRs (Architectural Decision Records).

Preferred Qualifications

• Multi-Cloud: Exposure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Retail Sector: Experience in high-volume, high-availability retail or e-commerce environments.
• Certifications: AWS Solutions Architect Professional or Security Specialty.

Our strong family values and 'cornerstones' lie at the heart of the success of our journey. If matching your ambition to our culture is an exciting prospect, there's never been a better time to join us.

We're a team. And teams work best together when they know and respect one another. Listen and learn from one another. So we offer a hybrid working model. Giving you the support you need to do well at work, and the flexibility to make life work for you.

We'll also equip you with a benefits package that includes:

• Competitive package including an annual bonus
• 25 Days holiday plus bank holidays
• Contributory Pension and Life Assurance
• Flexible Hybrid working (2-3 days in Watford)
• Save-as-you-earn scheme
• Colleague discount
• Discount platform including savings and cash back at numerous retailers, savings on gym membership, cycle to work scheme

Our widely recognised wellbeing strategy is something we're proud of at Wickes. As part of this, we offer a range of health and wellbeing benefits and support, including an Employee Assistance Programme, financial education & loans, and access to parental, menopause, and fertility support.

Wickes is a digitally-led, service-enabled home improvement retailer. Our purpose is to help the nation feel house-proud. We are a business that is 'big on people' and we are committed to creating a culture where anyone can be themselves and feel proud to be part of the Wickes family. Our agile, cross-functional teams work in a supportive, collaborative environment, and we are on a journey to become a 'seriously digital' business, leveraging modern, event-driven architectures (MACH) to deliver a best-in-class experience for our customers and colleagues. We care for our people - and we look out for one another. Everyone has a voice. We're ambitious, but we're inclusive, supportive and down-to-earth with it. Anyone can build on their talent and expect our support to get on. Please contact us here if you require any adjustments within the application process. If you require any reasonable adjustments at the interview stage you will have an opportunity to inform us when we invite you to interview. Please note, this link is only for reasonable adjustments required - general enquiries, or direct CV applications cannot be accepted via this form.