Lead Architect

Job Title: Lead Architect / Founding Engineering Hire

Department: Technology
Reports To: CTO

Location: London, UK (Hybrid: 3 Days in Office)
Employment Type: 12 month fixed-term contract

About i-media

i-media is an intelligent motoring media network, powered by data, insights, and pioneering technology. We offer advertisers access to an attractive media-starved audience via full-motion DOOH, experiential, and in-app advertising solutions. A multi-layered communication platform delivering both broadcast and targeted audiences through the intelligent use of data and analytics, i-media is on a mission to digitise and redefine how brands connect with on-the-go motorists.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Lead Architect to join a growth-stage, PE-backed business as our first in-house engineering hire. This is a pivotal role with end-to-end accountability for stabilising, rationalising and evolving an in-flight data platform that underpins our core commercial product.

You will work in close partnership with the CTO to define the technical direction of the platform, make critical build vs buy decisions, and establish the architectural foundations required to scale the product and bring engineering fully in-house over time.

This role blends hands-on technical leadership with strategic architecture ownership, and is expected to evolve into a broader engineering leadership position as the business scales.

Key Responsibilities

Platform & Architecture Ownership

Take ownership of an existing, in-flight data platform and rationalise the current architecture, addressing technical debt and structural risks.

Define and document a 6–12 month target-state architecture, aligned to product growth, commercial priorities and PE-backed scale expectations.

Own architectural integrity across scalability, reliability, performance and maintainability.

Technical Strategy & Decision-Making

Lead and document:

Build vs buy decisions

Data model and integration philosophy

Core product technology stack

Security posture, in collaboration with IT / cyber partners

Act as the technical decision-maker for the product, balancing speed, cost, risk and long-term scalability.

Cloud, Data & DevOps Ownership

Full ownership of:

Cloud account structure and environment design

Cost strategy, monitoring and optimisation

CI/CD pipelines, deployment standards and release processes

Ensure engineering best practice across infrastructure, data pipelines and deployment workflows.

Collaboration & Leadership

Act as the primary technical counterpart to the CTO, translating strategy into executable technical plans and ensuring clarity across the wider business.

Support the CTO in establishing engineering hiring standards, role profiles and future team structure.

Over time, contribute to building and leading the internal engineering function.

Core Technology Stack (Current)

Ownership and evolution required across:

Snowflake – primary data platform for new product

AWS – including Lambda, S3, Glue, RDS, IAM, VPC

Infrastructure as Code – Terraform

CI/CD – GitLab

Secrets & Monitoring – AWS native tooling

Skills & Experience

Essential

Proven experience as a Lead Architect, Principal Engineer or Senior Engineering Lead in a data-heavy, cloud-native environment.

Strong hands-on expertise with modern data platforms, ideally including Snowflake and AWS.

Experience taking ownership of existing platforms, stabilising architecture and defining future-state designs.

Deep understanding of cloud cost management, scalability and operational trade-offs.

Comfort operating as a founding or early engineering hire in a fast-growth, ambiguous environment.

Desirable

Experience in PE-backed, scale-up or transformation environments.

Exposure to media, data, advertising or OOH-adjacent platforms.

Previous involvement in building engineering teams from first hire onwards.

Attributes & Ways of Working

Pragmatic, commercially aware and outcome-focused.

Comfortable balancing hands-on delivery with architectural leadership.

Clear communicator, able to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Strong bias towards simplicity, resilience and long-term maintainability.

What We Offer:

Competitive salary with benefits package

Workplace pension

Monthly company socials

Healthcare Cash Plan

Cycle2Work Scheme

Enhanced holiday allowance

Free monthly 1-to-1 therapy sessions

Gym contribution

Hybrid working (3 days in the office)

Collaborative, innovative work environment

Opportunities for growth and learning

Equal Opportunities:
We’re committed to building an inclusive workplace and welcome applications from all backgrounds. Diversity drives innovation, and we do not discriminate based on race, gender, age, disability, religion, or sexual orientation.

Data Privacy:
By applying, you consent to i-media processing your personal data for recruitment purposes in line with UK GDPR regulations.