Description
Solution Architect - Digital
Location: Manchester Hybrid
Type: Contract
Rate: Inside IR35
Industry: Financial Services/Digital Transformation
Key Technologies: Stripe, Azure, Microservices, APIs, Digital Payments, Mobile & Web Integrations, AI, Agentic AI, Cloud Architecture
We are seeking an experienced Solution Architect to play a key role in a large-scale digital transformation programme. This position will focus on shaping and delivering the organisation's digital payments strategy, with particular emphasis on payment platform integrations, cloud-native architecture, and customer digital experiences. This is an excellent opportunity for a hands-on architect with deep payments expertise who can bridge strategy and delivery, working closely with engineering teams to design scalable, modern payment solutions.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the architecture and design of digital payment solutions supporting the organisation's strategic transformation roadmap.
- Define and implement integration architectures for payment platforms, with a strong preference for experience integrating with Stripe.
- Drive architectural decisions around payment processing, reconciliation, settlement, and transaction management capabilities.
- Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure architecture designs are practical, scalable, and deliverable.
- Provide hands-on architectural leadership across complex integrations and distributed systems.
- Support the transition towards modern cloud-native architectures, including microservices and micro Front End strategies.
- Design integration solutions across web and mobile digital channels.
- Work closely with business and technology stakeholders to align technology strategy with organisational objectives.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities to enhance customer experiences through innovation.
- Contribute to future digital capability planning, including AI-driven opportunities within payments and customer experiences.
Essential Skills & Experience
Payments Expertise
Extensive experience as a Solution Architect within payments environments.
Deep understanding of:
Digital payments ecosystems
Payment gateways
Transaction processing
Reconciliation processes
Payment integrations
Proven experience designing and delivering payment platform integrations.
Strong preference for experience with Stripe integration projects.
Technical Architecture
Strong Azure cloud architecture experience.
Experience designing and implementing:
Microservices architectures
API-led integrations
Event-driven architectures
Micro Front End solutions
Experience supporting both web and mobile channel integrations.
Ability to translate technical architecture into engineering delivery outcomes.
Delivery & Leadership
Proven experience working closely with delivery and engineering teams.
Ability to challenge, guide, and support technical teams through complex implementation challenges.
Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
Comfortable operating in a transformation-focused environment where architecture must balance strategic direction and practical delivery
Desirable experience within financial services, banking, fintech, or regulated environments.
Knowledge of AI and emerging technologies within the payments domain.
Exposure to
- Agentic AI solutions
- AI-enabled customer journeys
- Intelligent payment operations
- Automation and customer service innovation
Working Arrangements
Contract opportunity.
Hybrid working model with approximately 50% office attendance across the month.
Candidates must be willing to work from the Glasgow office location.
Edinburgh-based working is not available for this position.
Team & Environment
You will join a growing digital function that has delivered several major transformation initiatives over the last two years.
The team consists of a mix of permanent and contract professionals and is continuing to expand as further investment has been approved across digital transformation programmes.
The organisation has ambitious plans to modernise customer experiences, digital services, and payments capabilities, making this an exciting opportunity to influence the future technology landscape at scale.
Skills
- Architecture
- Solution architecture
- Azure
- Payments
- Stripe