Hippo Digital is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of public and private sector clients. We are recruiting for a Principal Technical Architect to support in our mission. We work at the intersection of strategy, design, and technology to solve complex problems and create lasting value. Our collaborative and agile culture empowers our teams to make a genuine impact.

As a Principal Technical Architect, you will be a strategic leader and trusted advisor, responsible for shaping the architectural vision and technical strategy for both our clients and our internal practice. Your scope extends beyond individual projects; you will mentor and guide other architects, lead our technical thought leadership, and act as a key contributor to business growth. You will influence C-suite level stakeholders, define architectural standards, and drive our technical direction in a high-impact, influential capacity.

Our solutions empower our customers to build and support secure, scalable, and well-engineered systems beyond traditional boundaries. We leverage deep data insights and continuous innovation to deliver platforms that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data and digital services. The Principal Technical Architect will be a key player and implementer in this mission.

Please note, we are looking for candidates who are looking for growth at this level (Principal), therefore the advertised salary band is the lower end of our full banding for this level of position, allowing for progression in the role.

Your Role In a Nutshell

We are seeking a senior-level architect to lead the architectural direction, collaborate with clients and internal teams, and drive successful outcomes across engagements.

Responsibilities

• Define and evangelise the architectural vision, standards, and best practices across the entire Hippo Digital delivery practice.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders, including C-level executives, to guide their long-term technical strategy and digital transformation initiatives.
• Lead the most complex and strategic technical engagements, providing enterprise-level architectural oversight and quality assurance.
• Mentor and coach our team of technical architects and senior engineers, helping them grow their skills and impact.
• Drive pre-sales and business development activities, leading the technical response to bids, conducting technical due diligence, and shaping new opportunities.
• Contribute to Hippo Digital's thought leadership through public speaking, writing, and community engagement.
• Act as a technical authority, making and communicating key architectural decisions that impact multiple projects or clients.

Skills and experience that you need

• Extensive, senior-level experience as a Technical Architect, with a proven track record of leading large-scale, enterprise-level digital transformations.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and implementing complex architectures across one or more major public cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP), including proven experience with multi-cloud strategies.
• A deep, strategic understanding of cloud-native technology stacks, with hands-on experience in containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and advanced CI/CD tooling (GitLab CI/CD).
• Exceptional skills in Infrastructure-as-Code, with extensive experience using Terraform for complex, repeatable deployments.
• A history of providing technical leadership and mentoring to other architects and engineering teams.
• Proven ability to influence and communicate effectively with C-suite and executive-level stakeholders.
• Experience in a consultancy environment, including contributing to pre-sales, proposals, and business growth.
• Expert-level knowledge of security, networking and governance principles in a cloud context.
• Experience as an Enterprise Architect using TOGAF is desirable.

What makes us great

Benefits

As well as a competitive salary which we are transparent about from the outset, you can also expect a range of benefits:

• Contributory pension scheme (Hippo 6% with employee contributions of 2%)
• 25 days holiday plus UK public holidays
• Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts
• Critical illness cover
• Life assurance and death in service cover
• Volunteer days
• Cycle-to-work scheme for the avid cyclists
• Salary sacrifice electric vehicles scheme
• Season ticket loans
• Financial and general wellbeing sessions
• Flexible benefits scheme with options of:
• private health cover
• private dental cover
• additional company pension contributions
• additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days)
• wellbeing contribution
• charity contributions
• tree planting

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo

At Hippo, we are dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups and are committed to an inclusive recruitment process. We are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant. Hippo strives to remove barriers, provide accommodations and offer reasonable adjustments to ensure equity throughout our practices.