Solution Architect - Network Automation

  • 3761 Barclays - BX - UK
  • Knutsford, Cheshire
  • 26/07/2026
Full time Information Technology Telecommunications

Job Description

Job Description Purpose of the role

To design, develop, and implement solutions to complex business problems, collaborating with stakeholders to understand their needs and requirements, and design and implement solutions that meet those needs and create solutions that balance technology risks against business delivery, driving consistency. Join us on a transformative journey as a Solution Architect-Network Automation, where you'll spearhead the evolution of our digital landscape, driving innovation and excellence. You'll harness technology to revolutionize our digital offerings, ensuring unappareled customer experiences. The Barclays Automation and Tools Engineering team is responsible for the design, build and operate of the underlying network infrastructure and toolchain across cloud, data centre, campus and branch that are required to run the Barclays Global Network at scale.

Accountabilities

Design and development of solutions as products that can evolve, meeting business requirements that align with modern software engineering practices and automated delivery tooling. This includes identification and implementation of the technologies and platforms. Targeted design activities that apply an appropriate workload placement strategy and maximise the benefit of cloud capabilities such as elasticity, serverless, containerisation etc. Best practice designs incorporating security principles (such as defence in depth and reduction of blast radius) that meet the Bank's resiliency expectations. Solutions that appropriately balance risks and controls to deliver the agreed business and technology value. Adoption of standardised solutions where they fit. If no standard solutions fit, feed into their ongoing evolution where appropriate. Fault finding and performance issues support to operational support teams, leveraging available tooling. Solution design impact assessment in terms of risk, capacity and cost impact, inc. estimation of project change and ongoing run costs. Development of the requisite architecture inputs required to comply with the banks governance processes, including design artefacts required for architecture, privacy, security and records management governance processes.

Vice President Expectations

To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escape breaches of policies/procedures If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department's future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L - Listen and be authentic, E - Energise and inspire, A - Align across the enterprise, D - Develop others OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment. Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda. Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does. Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business. Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.

To be successful as a Solution Architect-Network Automation, you should have:
  • Product development experience.
  • Experience with Python Programming, Micro services architecture, FasAPI, Ansible or Terraform experience.
  • Experience with Netmiko or similar network automation libraries including Netconf/Yang based Automation.
  • Knowledge and demonstrable hands-on experience with middleware technologies (Kafka, API gateways and others).
  • Understanding of network technology fundamentals, Data Structures, scalable system design and ability to translate information in a structured manner for wider product and engineering teams to translate into working solution.
  • Some other highly valued skills may include: Knowledge of DevOps tooling, GitOps, CI/CD, configuration management, Jenkins, build pipelines and source control systems.
  • Ample Network knowledge (CCNA or similar), Virtualisation/Infrastructure domain experience preferred.
  • Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure services: compute, storage, networking, hybrid connectivity, monitoring/logging, security and IAM.
  • Proficiency in Agile Methodologies Scrum/Kanban, backlog and workflow mgmt. and SRE specific reporting (MTTR, deployment frequency, SLO and others)
The four LEAD behaviours are:
  • L - Listen and be authentic
  • E - Energise and inspire
  • A - Align across the enterprise
  • D - Develop others

Your role will be based in our Knutsford office.

Our Work Experience is the combination of everything that's unique about us: our culture, our core values, our company meetings, our commitment to sustainability, our recognition programs, but most importantly, it's our people.

Our employees are self-disciplined, hard working, curious, trustworthy, humble, and truthful. They make choices according to what is best for the team, they live for opportunities to collaborate and make a difference, and they make us the Top Workplace in the area.