Vice President of Architecture

Job title:

Vice President of Architecture

Company

Instem

Job description

VP of Architecture
Location: Stone, Staffordshire
Status: Permanent, Full Time
Package: Competitive Salary, Remote/Home Working (with one-off allowance), Flexible Working (2 Days in the office for our Hybrid workers). Development & Opportunity (Personal & Technical), Private Medical (Optical & Dental options), Matching Contributory Pension, 25 Days Leave + Public Holidays + Buy and Sell Scheme, Life Insurance, Referral Scheme, Employee Assistance Program, Benefits Hub.Who’s Instem? Well, we’re a global provider of bespoke industry leading software solutions and services, which enables our clients to ‘bring life enhancing products to market faster’. We boast over 700 pharmaceutical clients (including all the top 20!), ranging from small to enterprise-sized organisations.Over 50% of the global drug discovery process runs through our software at some point. Therefore, each Instem employee has a significant impact in helping to save/prolong people’s lives all over the world. We want you to join our mission!What’s the culture/environment like? Although we’re a fast-growing organisation, we do have an incredibly supportive, communal, family-feel environment. We promote solution-based thinking, with full flexibility (minimal micromanagement) and empowerment – we want you to be accountable for your success! We’ll invest in you as a person and encourage you to take part in companywide sessions for wellbeing, mental health, critical conversations, and strengths.Why are we hiring a VP of Architecture?Instem is seeking an innovative and strategic Vice President of Architecture to lead the future state design of our product and application estate, ensuring alignment with the business’s product strategy. The VP of Architecture will focus on creating architectural plans and patterns to integrate a diverse and legacy-rich product suite into a unified, coherent SaaS solution. This leader will have a proven track record of guiding complex legacy systems towards a modern, scalable, and future-ready architecture, particularly in regulated environments.The role involves leading a small team of approximately 3 architects, fostering architectural maturity, and establishing robust processes and governance frameworks. The VP of Architecture will collaborate closely with product teams shaping the product strategy and platform engineering teams overseeing cloud operations and customer environments.What to expect?

• Architecture Strategy & Leadership:

o Define and drive the future state architecture of Instem’s core application suite, ensuring the alignment of technical architecture with the broader business and product strategies.
o Develop and implement architectural plans and integration patterns that transform a disparate, legacy-heavy product set into a streamlined, scalable SaaS solution.
o Lead the architectural transformation for Instem’s diverse portfolio of products, ensuring future-fit solutions suitable for a highly regulated environment (e.g., life sciences, healthcare).

• SaaS Solution Design & Legacy Migration:

o Architect modern, scalable, and secure SaaS solutions tailored for regulated industries, ensuring compliance with industry-specific standards.
o Guide the transition of legacy applications and systems to cloud-native architectures, ensuring smooth migration while preserving business continuity.
o Develop and implement microservices, APIs, and other architectural patterns to enable the integration of various products and systems into a cohesive SaaS offering.

• Governance & Architectural Best Practices:

o Establish governance frameworks, processes, and architectural principles to ensure consistency, scalability, and security across the entire product portfolio.
o Collaborate with product teams to ensure that architectural decisions align with the product strategy and long-term business goals.
o Define and maintain architecture documentation and blueprints to guide development teams across all stages of the product lifecycle.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration:

o Work closely with platform engineering teams, ensuring alignment between architectural decisions and cloud operations, infrastructure, and customer-facing environments.
o Partner with product management teams to ensure product roadmaps and architecture plans are fully synchronized and support the broader business vision.
o Serve as the technical advisor and subject matter expert to leadership and key stakeholders, providing architectural guidance on major initiatives.

• Team Leadership & Development:

o Lead, mentor, and develop a small team of architects (~3 FTE), fostering a collaborative and growth-oriented environment that promotes technical excellence.
o Drive the development of solution, business, and enterprise architecture practices as Instem increases its architectural maturity.
o Promote a culture of coaching, continuous improvement, and innovation within the architecture team, ensuring team members develop skills aligned with business and technology needs.
o Continuous Innovation & Industry Awareness:
o Stay abreast of the latest trends in enterprise architecture, cloud computing, SaaS, and regulated industry technologies to inform and drive architectural evolution.
o Continuously evaluate emerging technologies, tools, and architectural patterns to ensure Instem remains at the forefront of innovation.
o Identify opportunities for improving the architectural framework and delivery processes, promoting efficiency, security, and scalability.
o Adherence to our Quality Management System (QMS) to ensure all work is handled securely, professionally and diligently.Skills you’ll need:o Minimum of 10+ years of experience in an architecture discipline, with a focus on transforming legacy product estates into modern SaaS solutions.
o Deep expertise in designing cloud-based and SaaS solutions, particularly within regulated industries such as life sciences, healthcare, or finance.
o Strong experience with legacy migration, including refactoring, replatforming, or replacing legacy systems while maintaining operational integrity.
o Solid understanding of architectural best practices, including microservices, API-driven development, integration patterns, and domain-driven design.
o Proven experience in establishing governance frameworks and architecture processes in collaboration with product and engineering teams.We hire exceptional, enthusiastic people, and everyone is empowered to think solo, take the initiative and be innovative. We invite you to explore a world of opportunities with us, and to have influence in helping us achieve our goals, by being you!Instem stores and processes data using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Click below for more information regarding our privacy policy. #LI-KL1

Expected salary

Location

United Kingdom

Job date

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:34:59 GMT

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