Role Type

Permanent • Full-time • Senior

Description

Principal Architect (Technical Design Authority)

Reports to: Chief Technology Officer

About DataVita

DataVita is a next-generation cloud and infrastructure company operating from Tier III-certified data centres in Scotland. We work at the bleeding edge of AI adoption, automation, and how these technologies can be integrated into complex legacy environments to deliver genuine transformation.

Most of our customers do not come to us for a single product. They come to us because they have a range of problems across cloud, infrastructure, security, and operations that need solving together. Yes, we deliver managed cloud, backup, disaster recovery, and colocation.

We are also leading the development of the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone (AIGZ), delivering up to 500MW of AI-ready data centre capacity powered by private-wire renewable energy.

DataVita is the fastest growing technology company in Scotland, with plans to deploy and invest over £2 billion in the coming years. You would be joining at an early stage of that trajectory.

Working at DataVita

We value people who are naturally curious about technology, take the initiative to solve problems, and are comfortable challenging established ways of working when there is a better approach.

We are looking for someone who wants to help build and improve something, takes personal responsibility for outcomes, cares about the customer experience, and is motivated to keep learning as technology evolves.

About the Role

DataVita operates a large, dedicated compute and storage estate for a major public sector customer from our data centres, alongside a multi-year infrastructure transformation programme.

The programme has two phases: stabilising and improving the existing environment to ensure it is safe, supportable and well understood; and designing and building a new hybrid private cloud platform, migrating customer services in planned stages and retiring the legacy infrastructure. Multiple workstreams will run in parallel and the live service must remain operational throughout.

You will be DataVita’s senior technical authority for the customer, owning the technical direction across both phases. This is a hands-on leadership role. Working closely with the Programme Director, who owns the programme plan, governance and commercial health, you will provide the technical leadership and direction needed to deliver the transformation while maintaining a stable live service.

Key Responsibilities

Build and maintain an accurate, evidence-based picture of the estate using platform exports, monitoring, backup, security and service management data, validating findings against multiple sources.
Identify and prioritise risks based on real-world impact, agreeing whether to remediate immediately, address through the transformation or formally accept the risk.
Bring operational foundations up to standard, ensuring systems are known, monitored, patched, protected and backed up, with recovery tested.

Designing the target platform

Own the target architecture and modernisation roadmap across compute, storage, networking, connectivity, backup, archive, disaster recovery and security.
Size platforms using measured demand and produce High-Level and Low-Level Designs that engineering teams can implement.
Develop costed, supportable designs, including bills of materials, licensing and lead times, working within agreed commercial and service constraints.

Planning and leading the migration

Determine the destination for each workload, including migration, rebuild, upgrade, isolation, retirement or removal from scope, agreeing criteria with the customer.
Coordinate infrastructure changes with customer application teams, suppliers and other stakeholders to ensure work is completed in the right order.
Lead the technical work across migration waves, platform modernisation, decommissioning and cutovers, with appropriate testing, operational readiness and rollback.

Technical governance and the customer

Own the technical relationship with the customer, representing DataVita at architecture boards, design authorities, change advisory boards and assurance forums.
Manage technical communications and documentation for customers, partners, suppliers and internal stakeholders, ensuring information is controlled and versioned.
Apply supported platform patterns, justify exceptions and govern technical changes in line with DataVita’s architecture standards.

The team and the way we work

Lead and develop the customer’s solution architects, providing technical direction to engineering, delivery and service teams, and senior input to complex incidents and recurring problems.
Embed infrastructure as code, platform automation and repeatable analysis to maintain accurate, regularly refreshed views of the estate.
Use AI-assisted tools to analyse data and produce designs and documentation efficiently, validating outputs against source information and supporting team adoption.
Feed learning from delivery and live service into DataVita’s reference architectures.

Essential Experience

Significant experience owning infrastructure architecture for a large customer estate in a Managed Service Provider (MSP), Cloud Services Provider (CSP) or systems integrator environment.
Deep, current experience across compute and virtualisation, storage, data centre networking, backup and disaster recovery, with the ability to work at architecture and detailed design level.
Experience leading the technical side of large infrastructure programmes, including service take-on, transition, migration or data centre transformation while services remain live.
Experience taking on an environment from a previous provider or team, establishing what is really there, and bringing it to a supportable state.
A track record of HLDs, detailed designs and platform sizing that engineering teams have implemented, with clear ownership of decisions and outcomes.
Practical experience of infrastructure as code, platform automation and scripted data analysis.
Strong understanding of operational support, bills of materials, licensing, cost modelling and change control, balancing technical quality with commercial and service constraints.
The confidence to lead customer discussions, defend a technical position and change it when the evidence warrants it. You can explain complex issues clearly, to executives and engineers alike, and progress work independently.
Confidence using AI-assisted tools for analysis, design and documentation, checking the outputs and helping the team adopt useful approaches.

Desirable Experience

Experience in formal architecture boards, design authorities or change advisory boards.
Experience with public sector or regulated customers.
Experience of multi-supplier service integration (SIAM) and ITIL.
Familiarity with ISO 27001, GDPR or similar security and compliance requirements.
Familiarity with architecture frameworks such as TOGAF.
Exposure to cloud, hybrid or sovereign cloud platforms.

What You Will Get

Career & Growth

A business with serious market momentum and a nationally significant infrastructure pipeline.
Technical ownership of a major customer account and its transformation, direct exposure across DataVita, and training and development as the business grows.
Training and development throughout your time at DataVita.

Benefits