Solutions Architect

Come work at a place where innovation and teamwork come together to support the most exciting missions in the world When you join EDF Trading you’ll become part of a diverse international team of experts who challenge conventional ideas, test new approaches and think outside the box. Energy markets evolve rapidly so our team needs to remain agile, flexible and ready to spot opportunities across all the markets we trade in: power, gas, LNG, LPG, oil and environmental products. EDF Group and our customers all over the world trust that their assets are managed by us in the most effective and efficient manner and are protected through expert risk management. Trading for over 20 years, it’s experience that makes us leaders in the field. Energy is what we do. Most of all, we value our people. Become part of the team and you will be offered a great range of benefits which include hybrid working, a personal pension plan, private medical and dental insurance, bi-annual health assessment, corporate gym memberships, electric car lease programme, childcare vouchers, cycle to work scheme, season ticket loans, volunteering opportunities and much more. We even provide free fruit to keep you healthy. Gender balance and inclusion are very high on the agenda at EDF Trading so you will become part of an ever-diversifying family of around 800 colleagues based in London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo and Houston. Regular social and networking events, both physical and virtual, will ensure that you always feel connected to your colleagues and the business. Who are we? We are EDF Trading, part of the EDF Group, a world leader in low-carbon sustainable electricity generation partnered with JERA, one of Japan’s largest utilities; the perfect organisation at which to begin or progress your career in the commodities sector. Join us, make a difference and help shape the future of energy. Job Description: Department Information Technology – The IT department is responsible for an estate of bespoke and vendor systems deployed predominantly on internally managed data centres, but increasingly looking for opportunities to deploy within the cloud. The IT Delivery team is positioned within the IT organisation, to build the bespoke solutions demanded by the business. It also provides architectural consultancy to the wider development teams, including many “citizens”, mainly Python based, who have a range of development skills. Position purpose The Solutions Architect is a member of the Central Architecture and Practices team and is responsible for enabling the organisation’s wider IT community (developers, designers and engineers in departments outside of the IT organisation). By working closely with this community and building a strong relationships, you will get to know their challenges and working practices. As a Solutions Architect you will be proposing designs and improvements to their software development lifecycle (SDL), creating solutions to enable them to solve complex business problems, whilst increase their development productivity while lowering the cost of ownership and maintaining high security standards. The position requires coordinating with IT and external partners (e.g. Microsoft technical experts) to appreciate the existing landscape and propose modern designs, leveraging and introducing the art of the what is possible within the IT of EDFT to benefit the wider organisation in meeting its technical business goals. Core Responsibilities will include: Providing leadership for IT and non-IT development teams to implement and improve their designs, and advance their development process. Provide design services to enable developers to successfully meet challenging business ambitions, particularly in areas of energy commodity trading and analytics . Educating and guiding developers, designers and engineers on adopting modern SDL practices to improve on delivery times throughout the organisations. Create and develop proof-of-concept architectures for common situations and use cases across the wider organisation. Create and Develop a vision of an architectural future Support of innovation initiatives and projects across different departments and, where possible, foster co-operation and joint approaches. Researching new practices, tools and services and, meeting with other architects, identify opportunities for innovation, and formulating a view on the suitability of emerging technical trends and process for EDFT. Represent the developers for building and communicating the technical roadmap, with the purpose of using advances in technology to improve our platform and processes. This is a hands-on position and as a Solutions Architect you will be expected to work alongside development teams to provide guidance. You will share in the development teams’ accountability for the successful delivery of projects and products. The Solutions Architect while based in London will have responsibility of working across both the London and Paris offices. Occasional travel to the Paris office will be required. Experience required Experience of delivering IT systems, ideally working as a lead developer or architect Implementing architectures across a diverse set of technologies. These will range from front-end technologies utilising web and desktop front ends, through a variety of middleware architectures, approaches such as SOA, integration patterns and a variety of data storage technologies. Experience of hybrid and/or cloud architectures that utilise Azure and/or AWS (Azure preferred) Experience of facilitating workshops and collaborative working Strong understanding of high availability architectures Strong understanding of IT security concepts and practices Ideally the above knowledge and experience will have been gained in a top tier energy trading house, investment bank or a leading software house specialising in providing bespoke software-based solutions. Basic Technical Requirements Strong hands on experience in application development including in depth knowledge of C# and HTML. Hands on experience with the agile methodology and working across the entire software development lifecycle. Experience working with big data and large data sets using Relational Databases (DBS) and Document Databases. Strong experience within the cloud based technology, strong knowledge of products, services and offerings cross different cloud platforms. Ideally several years’ experience working within Azure. Strong hands-on experience in containers and technology such as Docker, Kubernetes, AKS or EKS. Hands experience with DevOps components such as Git, Azure DevOps, GitHub, CI/CD, Cloud Repositories, and cloud security. A strong working knowledge of Python with the ability to read and under stand complex code in order to support teams with their development. Preferred Technical Requirements Experience or knowledge of working with NoSQL and Non-Relational Databases such as MongoDB, Cosmos, Neo4j, Orient. Knowledge of emerging technology such as real time streaming and machine learning. Microsoft certification in Azure Solutions Javascripting frameworks such as Angular or React Knowledge of commodities trading, trading or the financial industry working along beside quant teams, analyst teams, and data teams. An understanding of Microsoft tech stack and infrastructure such as Windows Server, IIS, Active Directory and EntraID. Person specification You will have excellent interpersonal skills in areas such as teamwork, facilitation and negotiation. Working closely with other team you will be able to understand business objectives and be able to produce solutions to help other departments and the wider organisation achieve its business goals. You will be interested in new technology, constantly learning and making recommendations about emerging technology and building new possible within IT current infrastructure. You will have excellent analytical and technical skills with the ability to work with a wide variety of people with different technical capabilities. T You will have the ability to communicate complex subjects at different levels (e.g. to traders, IT developers, senior managers) Ability to understand the “big picture” and be able to balance between the long-term strategy and short-term perspectives of situations. Strong academic background, educated to degree level and / or equivalent professional qualification or relevant business experience Capable of working to demanding timeframes Hours of work: 8.30am – 5.30pm, Monday to Friday. However the candidate will be expected to be flexible in order to meet project deadlines. Place of work: EDF Trading has a flexible office/remote working policy. This role requires a minimum of two days per week in our London office