Contractor job AWS Solutions Architect - Hybrid

Role : AWS Solutions Architect
Location : Hybrid working - 2 days on site in Swansea and 3 days working from home
Duration : 6 months initially with view for extensions
Rate : £500 pd Inside IR35

We are seeking an experienced Solutions Architect with strong digital engineering experience and a deep understanding of cloud-native solution design. The ideal candidate will have broad exposure across modern software delivery, AWS cloud services, enterprise integration, and solution reference architectures-including the creation, evolution, and harvesting of architectural building blocks and patterns. Experience in payments or financial-services platforms is highly desirable.

Key Responsibilities

Solution Architecture & Design
* Lead end-to-end solution architecture for digital products and services, ensuring alignment with business objectives, technical strategy, and enterprise standards.
* Define and document high-level and detailed solution designs, including integration models, data flows, security patterns, and deployment architectures.
* Shape and maintain solution reference architectures, including reusable patterns, standards, and guidelines.
* Experience of working with development teams to harvest and identify patterns and best practice.

Cloud Architecture (AWS)
* Design scalable, secure, and cost-efficient AWS-based solutions using services such as EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB/RDS, CloudFront, S3, IAM, and others.
* Ensure solutions follow cloud-native principles, including observability, resilience, automation, and DevOps best practices.
* Collaborate with cloud platform teams to influence cloud governance, guardrails, and environment standards.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
* Partner with product managers, engineering leads, UX designers, and security teams to ensure coherent solution design and delivery.
* Translate business requirements into architectural blueprints and technical roadmaps.
* Provide thought leadership, mentoring, and architectural guidance across multiple product squads or projects.

Technical Governance & Standards
* Drive adherence to architecture standards, security policies, and technology governance processes.
* Contribute to architectural review boards and provide oversight for critical design decisions.
* Conduct solution assessments, risk evaluations, and technical due diligence.

Payments (Preferred)
* Leverage knowledge of payments processing, digital wallets, card schemes, authentication (3DS), PCI compliance, and related domains to shape robust and secure payment solutions.
* Partner with payments product teams to architect scalable and resilient payment flows and APIs.

Required Skills & Experience
* 5-10+ years in software engineering and solution architecture roles within digital or enterprise environments.
* Strong experience with AWS cloud architecture, cloud-native application design, and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
* Proven experience designing distributed systems, microservices, APIs, and event-driven architectures.
* Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain reference architectures, architectural patterns, and reusable components.
* Strong collaboration experience with engineering teams and cross-functional stakeholders.
* Excellent communication skills with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences.


LA International is a HMG approved ICT Recruitment and Project Solutions Consultancy, operating globally from the largest single site in the UK as an IT Consultancy or as an Employment Business & Agency depending upon the precise nature of the work, for security cleared jobs or non-clearance vacancies, LA International welcome applications from all sections of the community and from people with diverse experience and backgrounds.

Award Winning LA International, winner of the Recruiter Awards for Excellence, Best IT Recruitment Company, Best Public Sector Recruitment Company and overall Gold Award winner, has now secured the most prestigious business award that any business can receive, The Queens Award for Enterprise: International Trade, for the second consecutive period.