ASOS Technology is going through an exciting period of transition and major investment. – this includes a number of strategic programmes to deliver the amazing technology and business solutions to support our ambitious global growth plans. At the heart of these plans is the rebuilding of our digital platforms and channels to provide the best shopping experience for our customers. Our plan is designed to enable us to really put our mobile experience first, enable personalisation and support a data driven organisation. We are also making significant investments in all our Buying, Merchandising, Finance and People systems with the latest toolsets and applications to accelerate the next phase of our global growth. We are also improving our ways of working within Technology to enable autonomous platform development and improve our engineering and agile practices.

ASOS is one of the UK’s top fashion and beauty destinations, expanding globally at a rapid pace. Our values are to be authentic, brave and creative, and we live and breathe these in everything we do.

We believe fashion can make you look, feel and be your best and, with technology in our DNA, we deliver the latest trends to our digital-obsessed 20-something market. Our award winning Tech teams sit at the heart of our business. We deliver technical innovation and pioneer incredible solutions, which are crucial to our continued success.

We’re extremely ambitious and thrive on the individuality of our amazing employees. Our values encompass everything needed for our tech people to be the thought leaders of tomorrow.

JOB PROFILE

The Chief Architect is a key role in leveraging ASOS’s Tech capability ensuring that the business can get the best from it. The role will help us to advance our technology in line with our growth plans scaling up quickly whilst enabling us to adapt to changes we may not have expected.

The Chief Architect is responsible for building and defining the technology architecture and strategy for ASOS, enabling the organisation to scale effectively, and ensuring our tech enables this.

The role reports into the Director of Architecture & Engineering and collaborates with technology teams and senior leaders across the business, to align the technology architecture with the overarching business goals. Especially close collaboration with the Head Of Architecture will be key to success.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES 
 

• Working with the TLT define and communicate the Technical Strategy and Technical Roadmap for ASOS, collaborating with senior stakeholders across the business
• Establish appropriate models of governance and policy with key IT and business sponsors/stakeholders
• Support, encourage and inspire technologists across the group, especially mentoring technical leads

• Work to provide deep understanding and integration of the business and technology across the enterprise, to develop the models that best reflect the business strategy
• Management of the risks associated with information and IT assets through appropriate standards and security policies in collaboration with the Chief Information Security Officer

• Champion the architecture standards and principles to ensure IT decisions are made consistently across the enterprise and in context of the roadmap and state architectures

• Direct or indirect involvement in the development of policies, standards and guidelines that direct the selection, development, implementation and use of Information Technology

• Capture and maintain current state architecture and define future state architecture; develop roadmaps for the transitional states which inform the investment and project prioritisation processes

• Work collaboratively with the Product Management team and other stakeholders to ensure the technology choices made meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders
• Advise and support tech leads in the design and creation of their services and products
• Assist the Head Of Architecture in implementing appropriate Architecture reviews and other review boards for projects/programmes/domains; act autonomously in dealing with identified issues or deviance from standards

COMPETENCIES & BEHAVIOURS  

• Proven extensive experience as an Architect within a global/national organisation
• Experience working in a matrix organisation, including across geographies
• Strong experience overseeing the production of global frameworks and roadmaps
• Experience working as a member of an Architecture Design Authority or similar
• Proven ability to stay abreast of industry and technology trends
• Ability to 'see the big picture' and explain complex technical issues in non-technical language
• Practical experience in working within acknowledged Architecture frameworks
• Experience evaluating and analysing complex design propositions
• Able to work independently as well as part of a team
• Very strong problem-solving skills, including the ability to select or propose practical as well as innovative solutions
• Strong strategic planning skills
• Strong leadership, influencing, communication and stakeholder management skills
• Strong customer focus