[Hiring] Solution Architect @Morgan Advanced Materials

Role Description

Morgan IT is continuing its transformation toward an agile, cloud-first operating model built upon Microsoft Azure and modern platform engineering practices. The Solution Architect (Cloud) is responsible for defining cloud architecture standards, guiding technical delivery, and ensuring Azure platform capabilities remain secure, resilient, scalable and aligned to business objectives.

In addition to architecture ownership, the role acts as the technical lead for the Cloud Platform team, driving agile delivery practices, operational platform uptime and OKR activities, supporting engineers through complex technical challenges, and partnering closely with the Platform Owner to bring operational innovations into production.

The role serves as the bridge between strategy and execution, ensuring cloud architecture, engineering delivery and operational excellence remain tightly aligned.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience within Information Technology, with at least 5 years focused on Cloud Platforms, Infrastructure Architecture, Platform Engineering or related technical disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing and governing enterprise-scale Azure solutions, with broad knowledge across architecture, security, cloud platforms, operations and business processes.
• Proven experience working across global organisations, with the ability to collaborate effectively across cultures, regions and business functions.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with a proven ability to build trusted relationships with business leaders, technical teams, suppliers and strategic partners.
• Experience translating business objectives, operational challenges and organisational priorities into practical technology roadmaps and solution designs.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience acting as a technical leader, providing coaching, mentoring and guidance to engineering teams while fostering a culture of continuous improvement and technical excellence.
• Proven experience facilitating technical workshops, planning activities, Agile ceremonies, sprint reviews and OKR alignment sessions.
• Hands-on experience designing, deploying, managing and optimising Azure services and cloud-native solutions.
• Experience with automation, scripting, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and modern cloud engineering practices.
• A track record of identifying opportunities for innovation and operational improvement, successfully transitioning new capabilities from concept through to production operation.
• Experience balancing strategic thinking with operational delivery, ensuring technology decisions support both business outcomes and long-term platform sustainability.
• Passion for technology with a commitment to continuous learning and staying current with emerging cloud, AI and platform technologies.

Requirements

• Define and maintain Azure architecture standards, principles, patterns and reference designs.
• Lead the evaluation and adoption of emerging cloud technologies and services.
• Translate business requirements into secure, scalable and supportable cloud solutions.
• Ensure all cloud solutions align with enterprise architecture, security standards and platform roadmaps.
• Maintain the technical roadmap for Azure platform services in partnership with the Platform Owner.
• Act as the technical design authority for cloud-related initiatives and major platform changes.
• Support sprint planning, backlog refinement, technical reviews and retrospectives.
• Partner with the Platform Owner to establish and monitor team Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
• Support prioritisation of platform backlog activities based on business value, risk and technical dependencies.
• Provide technical coaching, mentoring and leadership to platform specialists.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation and continuous learning.
• Define and maintain the target-state cloud architecture, ensuring technology capabilities, operational requirements, risk, security and cost considerations are balanced to deliver sustainable business value.
• Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency through automation, self-service and cloud-native capabilities.
• Work closely with the Platform Owner to evaluate new technologies, innovations and proof-of-value initiatives.
• Lead the transition of innovative concepts into production-ready platform services.
• Advocate practical adoption of AI, automation and modern engineering practices where they deliver measurable business value.
• Continuously assess platform performance and recommend technical improvements that enhance reliability, security and scalability.
• Ensure cloud architectures meet organisational security, compliance and resilience requirements.
• Support disaster recovery, cyber recovery and business continuity architecture activities.
• Participate in architecture governance, risk reviews and change management processes.
• Collaborate with Security, Enterprise Architecture Board and Operations teams to ensure alignment of architectural decisions.
• Develop trusted relationships with platform stakeholders, product owners, project teams, enterprise architecture, security teams and technology partners.
• Collaborate with business teams to understand strategic objectives, challenges and opportunities, ensuring cloud capabilities enable measurable business outcomes.
• Communicate complex technical concepts, risks and opportunities in a way that is meaningful to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Partner with the Platform Owner to shape platform roadmaps, investment priorities and technology strategy aligned to business needs.
• Influence decision-making through technical expertise, data-driven recommendations and strong stakeholder engagement.
• Champion a customer-focused mindset across the platform team, ensuring solutions deliver positive business and user outcomes.
• Support organisational change initiatives by helping teams understand, adopt and maximise the value of cloud technologies.

Benefits

• Morgan Advanced Materials is an EEO/AA/M/W/D/V Employer.

Company Description

Morgan Advanced Materials is a business rich in history and innovation. Founded in the UK in 1856, we have grown into a global organisation with 70 sites in 18 countries. Our model to serve our customers where they need us has led to a diversified product range using our unparalleled expertise in ceramic and carbon materials, which we exploit to solve difficult problems for our customers across a diverse range of markets.

We are a purpose-driven organisation. Our purpose is to use advanced materials to make the world more sustainable and to improve the quality of life. We deliver on that purpose through the products that we make, and the way that we make them.

We help our customers push the limits of their processes and products to meet the demanding requirements they face, from higher process temperatures to higher product performance to increasing miniaturisation.

• Revenue £1,114.7m (2023)
• ~8,500 employees
• Manufacturing in 20+ countries
• A global customer portfolio
• A UK PLC with head office located in Windsor, Berkshire UK
• Listed on London Stock Exchange; Member of the FTSE 250 Index