Lead Software Architect

Every minute of every day, Smiths Detection’s threat detection and security screening technology helps to protect people and infrastructure, making the world a safer place. 

Smiths Detection is a global leader in the development, manufacture and management of security and detection solutions designed to make the world a safer place. Our technology provides threat detection and screening solutions for customers in our key markets: aviation, ports and borders, defence, and urban security.

Our expertise spans 21 global offices, seven manufacturing sites and five R&D centres, with a global network of 3,000 dedicated colleagues contributing towards over 40 years at the frontline of advances in safety and security.  

This results in careers built on variety and the opportunity to work on a range of state-of-the-art solutions, where you can develop your knowledge and experience every day.

Duties:

• Solve highly complex technical problems and deliver innovative, scalable, and maintainable solutions with minimal supervision.
• Implement architectural patterns and design standards in collaboration with key stakeholders, ensuring adherence to best practices and embedding security, reliability, scalability, and performance as non-negotiable quality attributes.
• Champion efficient software development methodologies aligned with Agile and Lean principles, fostering continuous learning, collaboration, and iterative improvement across teams.
• Contribute hands-on to development by designing, coding, reviewing, and optimizing critical software components and services.
• Drive DevOps transformation initiatives by adopting modern practices, toolchains, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) across the platform, with emphasis on automation, continuous integration, continuous deployment, and proactive operational monitoring.
• Design and maintain scalable CI/CD platforms and self-service deployment strategies supporting multiple applications and teams.
• Promote secure coding practices and integrate security controls throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
• Serve as a technical bridge between engineering, QA, and other teams to design efficient testing strategies and enable high-quality, innovative delivery outcomes.

Technical Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

Education Requirements:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, or Electrical/Electronics Engineering.
• 10+ years of experience in DevOps platform engineering and Linux system administration.

Essential Knowledge:

• Deep expertise in distributed systems, microservices architecture, Kubernetes, cloud-native platform engineering, and air-gap bridge architecture.
• Hands on experience in Service Mesh (ISTIO) and Kubernetes Composable CNIs (Cilium).
• Should have good expertise in defining deployment architecture and sound knowledge in Networking (BGP)
• Good exposure on Linux administration.
• Proven experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and automated build and release processes.
• Proficiency in containerization and orchestration technologies including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code, observability, monitoring, logging, and reliability engineering practices.
• Backend proficiency in one or more of Golang, Python, Java, gRPC/REST.
• Working knowledge of relational and non-relational databases.
• Advanced working knowledge of Linux environments, networking fundamentals, scripting, debugging, and performance troubleshooting.
• Knowledge of coding standards, version management (Git), build process, packaging (DevOps.)
• Good hands-on experience in designing helm charts, and deploy it in air gapped infrastructure using deployment tools like ZARF
• Expertise in defining the branching strategy and Release management.
• Agile/Scrum, Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), GitOps, with security gates.
• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code, observability, monitoring, logging, and reliability engineering practices.
• Understanding of secure coding standards, application security practices, and software quality assurance principles.
• Good hands-on experience with Argo CD and GitOps practices for automated application deployment and continuous delivery in Kubernetes environments.
• Good hands-on experience with Software Defined Storage like Longhorn or S3.
• Should have Data security knowledge with BC/DR K8s network policy.
• Good to have knowledge of Grafana, Loki, Tempo and Mimir database (LGTM stack) Full stack (Spring Boot & Angular) programming knowledge. 

Professional Skills and Competencies:

• Self-starter with excellent time management, attention to detail, and initiative.
• Exceptional communication skills in English (spoken and written) with ability to influence across all organisational levels.
• Proven stakeholder and matrix management experience in diverse, virtual teams with a global mindset.
• Strong collaborative abilities with cross-functional teams and demonstrated capability to drive continuous improvement and change.
• Ability to make effective decisions in complex environments through critical analysis and insight generation.

Join us and we’ll help build your career, with excellent training and opportunities for career growth across the business, both locally and globally. You’ll experience an inclusive environment, with strong leadership and a focus on safety and wellbeing. You’ll also have the flexibility to choose from a wide range of benefits to suit your lifestyle, offering you and your family support from a health and wellbeing, financial and lifestyle perspective.

Join us and work for a world-leader, with the benefits and training to reward your dedication and skills. Be part of a team where we are making the world a safer place.

We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment regardless of color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, economic status, disability, age, or any other legally protected characteristics. We are proud to be an inclusive company with values grounded in equality and ethics, where we celebrate, support, and embrace diversity.

At no time during the hiring process will Smiths Detection, nor any of our recruitment partners ever request payment to enable participation – including, but not limited to, interviews or testing. Avoid fraudulent requests by applying jobs directly through our career’s website.