About the role

At a glance

• Expected salary: up to - 75,600.00 - 140,000.00 GBP Annual

• Contract type: This position is for a Permanent Partner

• Flexible Working: This is a hybrid working role, therefore your time will primarily be split between working from home (in the UK) and London Head  Office / Bracknell Head Office. However, there will also be an expectation to  visit other locations as the need arises.

• Location: This role is based at our London Head Office campus in Pimlico. 

Key Responsibilities: 

As an Enterprise Architect, you will bridge the gap between ambitious architectural vision and pragmatic delivery, ensuring our technical capabilities allow us to operate, adapt, and transform in a rapidly changing retail landscape.

Working directly with the Head of Architecture & Engineering, you will lead diverse, cross functional teams to design sustainable technology solutions that deliver measurable value to our customers and our business.

This role sits within our Shared Capabilities business area, focusing on solutions that power the entire Partnership. Prior experience managing or integrating a diverse portfolio of enterprise applications and tools is highly desirable, as you will be optimising workflows across multiple platforms.

What You’ll Do

• Architect for the Future: Define the architectural intent and technical guardrails including security, data, and environmental impact, that align with our broader partnership strategy.

• Master the Roadmap: Own capability maturity roadmaps, expertly balancing short-term "test-and-learn" MVPs with long-term strategic goals.

• Champion Domain Driven Design (DDD): Use DDD principles to refine our enterprise models, reduce cross-domain dependencies, and ensure technical boundaries reflect our evolving business.

• Drive Commercial Value: Act as a trusted advisor on large scale investments, evaluating Total Cost of Ownership against ROI to ensure sound strategic spending.

• Lead with Influence: Empower Product and Platform teams to make rapid decisions, fostering a culture of psychological safety, empathy, and continuous growth

Essential Experience:

• Architectural Leadership: Extensive experience as an Enterprise, Principal, or Lead Architect within a large, complex corporate environment.

• Modern & Legacy Integration: A proven track record of designing "Cloud-first" architectures and integrating modern SaaS/COTS products with legacy systems like mainframes.

• DDD Expertise: Practical experience applying Domain-Driven Design to map complex business capabilities to scalable, decoupled systems.

• Strategic Vision: The ability to balance immediate delivery needs with multi-year enterprise goals.

Desirable Skills:

• Experience in Retail, E-commerce, or Supply Chain sectors.

• Deep familiarity with major ecosystems like Salesforce, Workday, or Google’s Digital Worker Experience.

• Advocacy for modern engineering practices such as Trunk-Based Development and Continuous Delivery.

• Relevant certifications (e.g., TOGAF, AWS/GCP Certified Solutions Architect).

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About The Partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.  

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.   

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect. 

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective. 

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.  

Important points to note:  

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.  

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.