Mobile Architect - Outside IR35

My client is looking for an experienced mobile architect to join their team on an initial 8 week piece of work with a good possibility to extend. This is a hybrid role and is outside of IR35.

Able to reconstruct architecture of large existing systems from code, interviews and incomplete artefacts - demonstrable, with examples; Fluency in structured modelling approach (C4, arc42, UML, ADRs). Documentation-as-code tooling, diagramming tools, Confluence/Miro.

Defining architecture characteristics and quality attributes, and assessing a system against them.

Platform bias: iOS depth expected. Must be conversant enough in Android to challenge and review docs and assessment findings.

iOS (primary depth)

• Swift, UIKit and SwiftUI in large production apps; understands the realities of a mixed UIKit/SwiftUI estate
• Modularisation at scale: SPM, Xcode workspaces, Tuist/XcodeGen, XCFrameworks, module boundary and dependency management
• Hands-on experience of architectural patterns in large production apps (MVVM, VIPER, TCA, Clean-style layering), and the ability to identify which one a codebase follows;
• Build, signing and distribution mechanics; profiling and performance analysis

Android (working knowledge)

• Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Gradle multi-module builds: enough to read, question and validate, not necessarily to write

Backend, API and integration

• Mobile-to-backend integration patterns: BFF, API gateway, REST/GraphQL/gRPC, versioning and contract management
• Identity and authorisation: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, token lifecycle, session management, step-up authentication; FAPI and Open Banking awareness
• Understanding of how a bank’s mobile app sits on top of core banking, payments and legacy estates, including mainframe-fronted services

Essential non-technical skills

• Executive stakeholder management: can hold a room with CTO-level stakeholders, present findings without softening them or turning them into an accusation
• Elicitation under resistance - gets useful answers from people who suspect they are being assessed
• Written clarity for mixed audiences
• Scope discipline: recognizes rabbit holes early and closes them protecting a fixed-price approach
• Independent judgement: willing to state a conclusion on partial evidence, and to label clearly where confidence is low
• Pace: comfortable producing a defensible first cut in week two for discussion and refining, rather than perfecting until week seven
• Fluent professional English, spoken and written

Nice to have

• Prior delivery inside a UK or EU retail bank, or comparably regulated environment
• Experience of a mobile platform modernisation or re-platforming programme, in either direction
• Cross-platform estates: Kotlin Multiplatform, React Native, hybrid/webview components
• Consultancy background; experience scoping and defending fixed-price work