Lead Technical Data Architect

Your new company
You will be working for a well-known organisation who are based in Telford. The requirement will be to be on-site 2 days a week. The role is a 6 month contract and active SC Clearance is required for this role. This role is inside scope of IR35.
Your new role
Role PurposeThe DWIT Lead Architect is accountable for leading architecture teams responsible for documenting existing data feeds, assessing their transformation to AWS, and defining safe decommissioning strategies for legacy services. The role provides technical leadership, architectural control and delivery alignment across feed discovery, legacy estate analysis, target-state design and migration planning. It ensures that current services are properly understood, documented and prioritised before transformation decisions are made.Context. DWIT is undertaking a significant transformation of existing data feeds and legacy services onto AWS.

The work requires disciplined discovery, consistent documentation, clear architectural judgement and practical decommissioning plans that can be executed safely across a complex client and supplier landscape.

Accountabilities include:* Leading teams of architects responsible for discovering, documenting and assuring existing data feeds, interfaces, dependencies, service ownership, operational constraints and business usage.* Setting documentation standards, templates and quality expectations so feed analysis is consistent, traceable and usable by engineering, delivery, operations and governance teams.* Defining target-state AWS transformation approaches for existing feeds, including data movement, processing, integration, security, resilience, observability and support considerations.* Developing decommissioning strategies for legacy services, including dependency mapping, migration sequencing, risk management, parallel running, cutover planning and evidence required for retirement decisions.* Using AI-enabled tools to accelerate feed discovery, documentation, code and metadata analysis, dependency identification, option development and architecture artefact production, with appropriate human review and governance.* Owning architectural decisions, assumptions, risks and issues across the transformation lifecycle, ensuring they are visible, actively managed and aligned with client governance.* Working with delivery leads, engineers, operations teams, client stakeholders and third parties to ensure transformation and decommissioning plans are realistic, executable and aligned to programme priorities.* Providing architectural assurance across discovery, design, migration and decommissioning activity, including challenge of incomplete analysis, unsupported assumptions or plans that do not support safe delivery.* Building client confidence through clear communication, credible technical leadership and honest advice on risk, complexity, trade-offs and delivery implications.Expected OutcomesThe role is expected to produce clear, usable outputs that support delivery decisions and reduce risk across the DWIT transformation.Expected outcomes include:* A consistent, assured catalogue of existing feeds, interfaces, dependencies, service owners, schedules, consumers and operational constraints.* Clear transformation options and recommended AWS target patterns for each feed or service grouping, supported by risks, assumptions and decision rationale.

Expected uses include:* Accelerating analysis of legacy code, configuration, metadata, schedules, schemas, interface definitions and existing documentation.* Supporting feed documentation, dependency mapping, option development, risk identification and production of architecture artefacts.* Creating reusable prompts, templates, patterns and review checklists that can be adopted consistently across DWIT architecture teams.* Ensuring AI-generated outputs are reviewed, evidenced and governed before being used to support architecture decisions or client-facing deliverables.

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