Technical Architect
A mixture of home-based and regular visits to our Burford office

Pets are at the heart of everything we do. Each year, thousands of cats, dogs, small pets and horses turn to our animal hospitals, clinics and rehoming services for treatment and to find them the happy homes they deserve. Meanwhile, our Education and Behaviour teams prepare future pet owners to take responsibility and look after their pets for life.

The Information Services function (IS) is embarking on a series of multi-year technology initiatives aimed at consolidating, replacing and implementing new systems to support the charity for the future. We have a diverse portfolio of technology services which helps Blue Cross deliver a wide range of services to our clients and colleagues.

What is the role?
Are you an IT professional with experience in leading a designing and developing technology solutions?

To help us achieve our goals we are looking for a Technical Architect with good experience of Cloud, On-premise, SAAS, infrastructure and application solutions.
You will be:

• Collaborating across the organisation to understand the Blue Cross’s technology needs and define system specifications to meet those needs.
• Maintaining, designing, documenting and auditing systems to ensure, compliance, scalability and interoperability of the organization’s technology and information systems.
• Collaborating with external third parties in the design and integration of end-to-end services for Blue Cross to ensure functional and non-functional requirements are met.
• Working across the IS function with other team members, you will ensure that the architecture for all systems are fully understood, illustrated and documented.
• Reviewing and advising on the suitability of proposed solutions and the compatibility with existing solutions, and to ensure alignment with the Blue Cross Information Services strategy.
• Providing insights from the latest technology trends to advise where appropriate new developments could assist the organization in meeting its long-term goals.

Your experience should be drawn from a number of organisations giving you a wide breadth of knowledge from which to draw solutions and ideas. Not all need to be ‘not for profit’ but some sector experience would be beneficial.

If you are interested in helping us to provide even better systems and service, then this may be the role for you.

Contracted hours are 35 hours per week these can be split between Blue Cross sites and home working. Occasional travel to various sites and events will be necessary.

What is required?

We are looking for people with the following:
• Knowledge and experience of all components of holistic IT enterprise architecture: business, data, applications, technology.
• Deep understanding of appropriate architecture methodologies (for example, TOGAF).
• Knowledge of business and operational engineering principles and processes.
• Familiarity with basic graphical modeling approaches and tools.
• Proven capability in writing reports, IT architecture and data flow schemas clearly, concisely, and professionally for liaising with technical authorities internally and externally and end-users internally.
• Good written language skills to be used both in technical and non-technical contexts.
• A deep level of technical knowledge across a broad range of systems and disciplines, including LAN, WAN, PAAS, SAAS, IAAS, Cloud environments, Routing, Servers, and Microsoft application technologies.
• A good understanding of application and data warehousing.
• ITIL Service Management foundation qualified.
• A full driving licence with the ability to travel to remote sites and supplier locations

It would be great if you had:
• Prior experience as a solution, enterprise architect or technical architect.
• Prior experience of migrating technology services to cloud-based environments.
• A demonstratable understanding of technologies used in-house within Blue Cross: Dell PCs, Servers and Switches, Fortigate, MS Hyper V and Sophos technologies.
• Microsoft Certification.
• Experience of working in a third sector/not-for-profit environment

Want to know more? Great! We have attached the job description which will provide you with more detailed information.

If you excel in an environment where you can see the difference you make every day then this is the role for you. Interested? Then apply and let’s work together to see if this is the role for you.

To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please click on the 'What We Offer' tab or paste the following into your browser: https://jobs.bluecross.org.uk/BlueCross/Benefits

Salary: £48,000 - £54,000 per annum
Grade: 3.2
Closing Date: 18th October 2021

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.

Blue Cross holds inclusion as a core organisational value. We positively encourage applications from suitably qualified, experienced and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, transgender status, religion or belief, marital status or pregnancy and maternity. We actively embrace our differences and know that it is our differences that make us unique. You are very welcome at Blue Cross, without the need to hide any part of who you are.