New Head of Architecture role — an informal and realistic viewpoint
New Year, new start, new job, seeking some purpose in your life? Want to use the power of technology to help people in crisis? I’m looking for a Head of Architecture to join my technology leadership team here at the British Red Cross. Check out the advert here:
https://careers.redcross.org.uk/vacancies/5370/head-of-architecture.html
If want to know some more about us and our culture, check out some of our technology blog posts here:
https://medium.com/digital-and-innovation-at-british-red-cross/tagged/technology
For the best possible fit, we are looking for people who have / are the following:
1. A relentless drive to make the experience of users better (our staff and volunteers have tough jobs, we need to make it easier for them)
2. Comfortable with ambiguity (we’ve got loads)
3. Self-sufficient and wanting to lead change (don’t tell me it’s broken, tell me how you’re going to fix it)
4. Resilience (big rewarding jobs aren’t easy)
5. Self-aware and authentic (be proud of who you are, and your own particular skills)
I’m lucky enough to have innumerable awesome people as my colleagues and peers already, check out some of them here:
(and you can check me out too)
You’ll note that at no point so far have I mentioned qualifications or experience! Maybe it’s a flawed statement, but I don’t think that specifics necessarily apply here. You’ll likely be a senior technology leader, with significant experience, but you could come from a variety of backgrounds (just look at some of the diverse experiences the people above have). In this role you’ll need to help every discipline within our DDAT team and the whole of the wider organisation make sensible decisions about technology and its uses (including where not to use it!). You’ll have a breadth of knowledge and experience which you’ll be able to purpose into leading decision making processes, providing sensible advise, creating roadmaps, running workshops and leading a small team (whilst influencing a much larger one). You’ll be able to define the make up of your team yourself, but it’s likely to include some or all of the major architectural disciplines. You’ll be comfortable working with and discussing conceptual design positions on mainstream public cloud vendors, SaaS platforms, M365, security and all the other technology pieces which might make up this wider puzzle. This is not an engineering role though, it’s a people and influencing role most of all, and that’s what you should hang your hat on. Success will be defined by the quality of the wider user experience in the organisation, the success of change projects, along with the security, TCO and manageability of the estate.
You’ve probably seen the T&C’s on the advert, but here’s some of what I think are the great benefits of working here (the top 2 being my personal favourites, not that I don’t love our pension scheme too).
- True Flexible working (flexi hours / days / compression / location)
- 36 days annual leave plus the chance to purchase 5 extra days leave
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and careers leave
- Pension scheme
So yeah, we’re not “new twitter”, we don’t want you to work 80 hour weeks, and we don’t pride ourselves on always being first in and last out of the office. As a rule I think you could say that we believe that’s total BS. Now your mileage may vary and everyone is entitled to their own outlook, but we want to create a culture of wellbeing and balance where your job is not your life.
Let me be clear though, this doesn’t mean it’s easy and a walk in the park, far from it! It’s hard, really hard in fact! If you’ve never worked for an NGO before, then maybe get ready to reset your expectations, or come in and have a chat with us to see the probable difference between your perceptions and our reality. I wrote back in 2020 about how working here was like trying to perform open heart surgery, on a moving train (a bumpy English one), whilst being attacked by a pack of rabid dogs. Now that’s 3 years ago, and I’ve vaccinated a few of those dogs, implemented some timetable changes to those trains and completed the first stage of the heart surgery, but truth be known, the patient is still suffering from years of chronic illness, no exercise and bad diet, and we need to turn that around. It’s not easy, it’s full of ambiguity, but it can be fulfilling.
If any of this sounds interesting then we’d love to talk to you.
