Security Solution Architect Team Lead

The Security Architecture team sits within the CTO department. The team is structured in two parts:

Security Solution Architecture – responsible for defining and maintaining security solution architectures and designs, and supporting development of the enterprise security architecture

Security Enterprise & Domain Architecture – responsible for defining and maintaining the enterprise security capability model and associated security domain architectures and roadmaps

This role will manage the Security Solution Architecture team. The successful candidate will be a delivery-focused expert in security solution architecture and design matters. They will have experience of managing small teams working across a wide range of projects in parallel. The Security Solution Architecture Team Manager will be a key member of the wider Architecture management team within CTO. The role will report into the Head of Security Architecture.

The Security Architecture Team is engaged on all areas of significant IT change in Admiral, such as the design and delivery of major cloud solutions in Azure and GCP, the roll out of new business product lines, customer-facing Digital projects, building out new security technologies, and the creation of Admiral’s Next Gen Architecture.

The Security Architecture Team has people working across Wales, Scotland and England. The team mostly works remotely but we’re a friendly team, with regular team meetings and stand ups throughout the week, and we get together face to face in the office in Cardiff and for offsite meetings when we can.

Role Purpose

The Security Solution Architecture Team Manager will lead and manage the day-to-day operation of the Security Solution Architecture process and team. The Team Manager will be a “player manager”, capable of delivering security solution designs, but should expect most of their time to be spent in management responsibilities.

Security Solution Architects play a key role in the delivery of all new IT and security solutions in Admiral. Our aim is to be a trusted partner for the IT and business teams that we support, providing expertise and thought leadership to meet their security needs.

The Security Solution Architects lead the creation of the high-level security design for all new solutions. We own the security design end-to-end, meaning that we work with IT Architects, InfoSec, the Engineering teams, and project delivery teams to help resolve any security solution delivery challenges and ensure that the final solution is effective.

The Security Solution Architects also lead on the development of re-usable security solution patterns and reference architectures. We work with the Security Domain Architects to align solutions and patterns to the security technology roadmaps and overall security strategy.

Responsibilities

• Manage the team, including day-to-day operations, line management and recruitment.
• Provide leadership in design governance processes to ensure high quality of design outputs.
• Act as an escalation point for security design challenges.
• Manage the security solution architecture repository.
• Work with InfoSec colleagues to assess security risks and define security control requirements.
• Provide security architecture coaching and consultancy to help embed security architecture thinking across all areas of IT.
• Work with the Enterprise and Domain Architects to understand the business goals and vision, and contribute to the security domain strategies and roadmaps.
• Manage key stakeholders including technical and non-technical.
• Support the Head of Security Architecture in continuous improvement of processes and outputs.
• Support the Head of Security Architecture to run security technical debt management processes.
• “Player manager”, able to define security solution architectures and high-level security designs.
• “Player manager”, able to own security solutions end-to-end to ensure the security architecture is delivered and effective.

Who are we looking for?

We take on many different roles within IT, but we consistently look for people who are: -

• Happy to take ownership of challenges and lead the way in overcoming them.
• Passionate about what they do.
• A continual learner (forever inquisitive for self-improvement).
• Self-motivated.
• Delivery-focused.
• Positive and a great team member.
• Articulate in describing technical topics for non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable interacting with audiences up to senior management level.

Requirements / Technologies

We would like to hear from candidates who can fulfil most of the following criteria: -

• Proven track record of leading and managing teams.
• Experienced team leader, able to lead calmly through periods of high delivery demand.
• Extensive experience of working in architecture / design roles.
• Expert knowledge of security frameworks and practices, with a strong technical grounding.
• Proven track record of solving complex and challenging technical problems.
• Excellent communicator, comfortable with audiences up to and including senior management.
• Drive and enthusiasm for the benefits of security architecture and design.
• Experience of architectural governance, standards, and methodologies.

We are particularly keen to hear from candidates who meet one or more of the following criteria: -

• Security design experience in at least one major cloud platform (Azure, GCP, AWS).
• Experience of working in large organisations in regulated sectors.
• Certification in architecture frameworks (eg., SABSA, TOGAF).
• Cloud security design certifications (eg., AZ500).
• Security certifications such as CISSP, CISM etc.
• Experience of working in Scaled Agile / DevSecOps environments.

Interviews

CVs will be reviewed as soon as soon as we can and interviews will typically be arranged on the following week.

Salary, Benefits and Work-Life Balance

We do not have a set salary for this position, as it will be dependent on the successful candidate’s experience. We are happy to see CVs from all candidates who meet the requirements and will be happy to discuss the remuneration package.

At Admiral, we are proud to be a diverse business where we put our people and customers first. We have great benefits to ensure employees have a great work-life balance; it's one of the reasons we're consistently voted one of Sunday Times Best Big Companies to Work For in the UK. We want you to have an element of freedom to define a working lifestyle that supports this, so accommodate flexible hours wherever possible.

You can also view some of our other key benefits here; https://admiraljobs.co.uk/employee-benefits/.

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