Head of Platform & Architecture

Role Purpose

• Lead the Architecture & Evolve Platform portfolio: Architecture & API Standards, Evolve Studio, Shared Experience and Quality Assurance. Give product teams clear technical direction, reusable capabilities and objective quality evidence so they can deliver reliably.
• Work through the four squad leads. Evolve Engineering owns product domains, including COP and FCP. Platform Operations owns infrastructure, deployment, operational continuity and Cybersecurity, Trust & Governance; this role embeds their requirements in designs, shared code and testing.

Career Path

Progression towards Group Chief Architect or broader CTO responsibility depends on sustained delivery, leadership and business need.

Core Accountabilities

Set clear architecture and API standards

• Own target architecture, domain boundaries, API and data contracts, integration patterns, architecture decision records and developer documentation.
• Chair the Architecture Forum; resolve cross-team decisions by agreed dates, review significant designs before build and record approved exceptions.
• Define Legacy-to-Evolve transition designs with the delivery Heads; assess technology choices and maintain the architecture roadmap.

Deliver reusable Evolve Studio capabilities

• Own Evolve Studio’s product and pricing configuration, workflow and underwriting controls, multitenancy and multilingual capabilities.
• Agree requirements with product Heads; deliver tested, documented capabilities, support adoption and resolve Studio code defects. Product squads own their domain rules and customer outcomes.

Build a consistent shared experience

• Own shared frontend foundations, the design system and reusable components that support consistent journeys across products and channels.
• Agree UX and accessibility standards with product teams; remove integration friction and reduce duplicate frontend builds while product squads own their journeys.

Provide objective release-quality evidence

• Lead QA strategy, test automation, regression and performance validation across the portfolio.
• Publish test results and defects against agreed release criteria; flag blocking risks before release and verify fixes through retesting.
• Product squads remain accountable for their code and quality; Platform Operations owns deployment, operational readiness and Cybersecurity, Trust & Governance.

Build capable teams and deliver a resourced roadmap

• Lead the Architecture & API Standards, Evolve Studio, Shared Experience and QA squad leads; develop skills, succession and clear performance expectations.
• Match commitments to available skills and an approved hiring plan; protect support capacity and escalate unresourced work before committing.
• Own the portfolio roadmap, quarterly outcomes and budget; assess build-versus-buy and explain costs, dependencies and investment trade-offs to the CTO and ExCo.

Weekly Success Measures

Architecture readiness

• Decisions due this week completed; significant builds with required design review and agreed API/data contracts.
• ≥95% of decisions by due date; 100% required reviews and contracts before build.

Shared capability delivery

• Studio and Shared Experience milestones due this week completed with agreed tests, documentation and integration evidence.
• ≥90% completed by due date in each squad; 0 critical defects in releases.

Release-quality evidence

• Release candidates with required regression and performance evidence, known defects and a QA recommendation before the gate.
• 100% evidence coverage; 0 release recommendations with unresolved critical defects.

Reuse and adoption

• Eligible new workflows using Studio or Shared Experience capabilities; new duplicate builds.
• ≥80% adoption; 0 unapproved duplicates. Shared outcome with product Heads.

Shared code support

• Critical Studio/Shared Experience code issues resolved within agreed engineering SLAs; overdue issues.
• 100% within SLA; 0 overdue critical code issues.

Capacity and delivery cover

• Next 2 weeks’ committed work covered by named, available people with the required skills, including QA and support.
• 100% coverage; 0 unapproved double-bookings.

First 90 Days Deliverables

Days 1–30

Assess & Align

• Map the four squads, shared dependencies and APIs; baseline QA coverage, performance evidence and capacity. Agree five priority risks and three quick wins with the peer Heads and CTO.

Days 31–60

Set Standards & Lead

• Publish priority architecture/API standards and release-quality criteria. Agree the Studio, Shared Experience and QA roadmap, capacity and Security/Operations handoffs; resolve one cross-team design decision.

Days 61–90

Deliver & Influence

• Deliver one shared capability or quality improvement with evidence. Present the 12-month roadmap and approved resourcing plan; demonstrate reduced blockers and run the weekly outcomes review.

Experience and Leadership Style

• 5+ years in software engineering with proven senior architecture or platform leadership experience.
• Strong service architecture, API, data-contract and integration skills across large-scale, regulated platforms.
• Experience delivering reusable configuration platforms or shared frontend capabilities adopted by multiple teams.
• Practical leadership of QA, test automation, regression and performance validation, with clear release-quality evidence.
• Cloud expertise, secure design judgement and experience working with Security and Platform Operations.
• Experience leading teams of 5+ across disciplines, developing leads, managing investment trade-offs and communicating clearly with executives.

Leadership Approach

• Combine strategic judgement with practical design depth; make timely decisions and maintain standards under delivery pressure.
• Lead calmly, surface risks early, communicate plainly and build teams that deliver without constant escalation.