Who We Are
WPP Enterprise Solutions designs, builds, and operates the growth systems that competitive businesses rely on. In a world where Al is reshaping how companies drive growth, we lead clients in business transformation and marketing modernization, connecting strategy directly to execution. Our 12,000 experts in engineering and platforms, commerce, consulting, content transformation, CRM, and CX work within a unified global operating unit across 40+ markets. WPP Enterprise Solutions works alongside best-in-class partners including Adobe, AWS, Braze, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Shopify, as well as innovators in AI, to deliver growth solutions tailored to the needs of our clients’ businesses. VML, part of WPP, supports WPP Enterprise Solutions by helping brands activate transformation through creativity and experience.
Role Overview
We are looking for a permanent Principal Technical Architect. Our Commerce & Technology division helps leading global brands deliver digital experiences. As clients transition from AI experimentation to production-grade, autonomous agentic platforms (systems that plan, reason, act, and transact), we are seeking a Principal Technical Architect. Serving as the senior technical authority on our AWS and cloud engagements, you will own the design and quality of robust, scalable applications.
In this outward-facing, energetic leadership role, you will architect enterprise-grade cloud applications with a strong focus on agentic AI platform components—including orchestration, memory, tool integration, identity, guardrails, and observability—as well as emerging Agentic Commerce. Alongside driving technical strategy, you will actively partner with clients, lead dynamic workshops, participate in governance, and collaborate with commercial teams to identify and shape new growth opportunities. Balancing strategic vision with hands-on delivery, you will stay close to the code, prove technical solutions through rigorous code reviews, and mentor engineering teams to establish a high bar for quality, automation, and operational best practices.
What you’ll be doing
- Technical Leadership & Governance: Act as the account's senior authority on complex cloud architectures (esp. AWS serverless). Establish technical governance, design standards, and manage risk, non-functional requirements (NFRs), and technical debt.
- Agentic AI & Commerce Innovation: Design AWS-based agentic AI platforms (orchestration, RAG, memory, guardrails, and MCP). Establish reusable patterns and advise clients on emerging Agentic Commerce standards (ACP, AP2, A2A, and secure payment models).
- Client Engagement & Account Growth: Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, translate complex concepts, and facilitate technical discovery workshops. Proactively identify, shape, and pitch technical solutions to drive account growth.
- Hands-on Engineering & Delivery: Provide hands-on technical ownership by proving solutions, reviewing code, and designing robust API/integration patterns. Champion a quality-first mindset using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), CI/CD, and automation.
- Capability Building: Mentor engineers and architects, share knowledge on emerging technologies, and raise the overall technical bar across the account and practice.
Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are. We offer a great benefits package including a discretionary bonus scheme, training opportunities, competitive pension, medical insurance, life assurance, social events, opportunities to buy and sell holidays, family friendly policies, discounts with hundreds of retailers and much more. Our culture thrives on our core values, designed for impact-driven individuals: Heart, Brains and Courage.
What we want from you
- Leadership & Consulting: Senior/Principal architect with experience in digital agencies or consultancies, skilled at leading development teams, guiding clients through workshops, and identifying business growth opportunities.
- AWS & Serverless Architecture: Deep hands-on expertise in designing, documenting, and delivering resilient, high-availability enterprise applications on AWS (including serverless patterns and appropriate integration components).
- Agentic AI & Commerce: Strong understanding of building agentic AI platforms on AWS (e.g., Bedrock, orchestrations, RAG, gateways/MCP) and awareness of emerging Agentic Commerce concepts and standards (ACP, AP2, A2A).
- Software Engineering & API Design: Strong development background (ideally TypeScript/JavaScript) coupled with robust API design, documentation, and versioning experience.
- DevOps & Quality Automation: Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/CDK/CloudFormation), CI/CD pipelines, and a strict quality-first mindset (unit testing, automated tooling).
- Communication & Collaboration: Proactive, energetic collaborator with excellent written, verbal, and diagrammatic skills capable of translating complex technical concepts for senior stakeholders.
If you know some of this, even better
- AWS Solutions Architect Professional (or Associate as a minimum)
- AWS Specialty certifications (e.g., Security, Data/ML)
- Familiarity with: The C4 model, Diagrams-as-code, DevOps practices, Headless architectures, Practical application of LLMs within enterprises
