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 Summary

The Head of Architecture 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 Head of Architecture has accountability for all Enterprise Architects and the overall effectiveness of the Architecture practice, driving the adoption of standards, career development, competency and implementation of the technology strategy, architecture and the multi-year technical roadmap for ASOS’s platforms to deliver on our growth strategy. 

Working in collaboration with all delivery and functional leadership teams across the technology organisation the Architects partner with the platform teams to define and then action the technical changes required to deliver the roadmap.

Principal Accountabilities

• Provide enterprise-wide thought leadership and high-profile contribution to strategic activities.
• Ensure all platforms and ecosystem support the technology led objectives pertaining to: performance, availability, security, velocity, quality and cost optimisation
• Deliver on agreed technology objectives and KPIs
• Keep abreast of what is happening in the market, collaborating with the Chief Architect to drive innovation and strategies for exploiting the most out of platform investments 
• Provide leadership and expertise to the Architecture team. Drive a high performing team of by providing clear direction, coaching and development.
• Drive the team to follow the standards and quality expected.
• Collaborate with the Chief Architect to define the Enterprise Architecture roadmap
• Ensure that the translation of the relevant Blueprints into delivery is effective and that the underpinning programme methodology and documentation is suitably developed and deployed.

• Work with technology leads and business stakeholders to define, implement and enable successful delivery of the roadmap against ASOS’s overall goals

Competencies & Behaviours

• Proven experience of working in enterprise and technical architecture design and leadership.
• Experience motivating, leading, an architecture function in a fast-paced, forward-thinking innovative environment whilst ensuring the best use of available talent and capacity.
• Strong interpersonal skills and stakeholder management with the ability to influence, advise and consult at all levels.
• Ability to work and influence at a senior level.
• In-depth knowledge of industry best practices, architectures, established and emerging technologies.
• Experience of delivering in an Agile environment 
• In-depth knowledge and experience of the IT services marketplace and the challenges facing customers.
• Experience of working effectively in a matrix environment and able to demonstrate experience of satisfying multiple senior stakeholders for their strategic needs