Lead Architect, Cloud

About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the worlds leading brands. With exceptional talent trusted data and intelligence and world-class partnerships all united by ourpioneeringagentic marketing platform WPP Open we help clients navigate change capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.

WPP Media is WPPs AI-driven media operating unit bringing together media data and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence clients see exactly where how and why their media investment is working.

For more information visit .

309 - Lead Architect Cloud Choreograph Consulting

About WPP Media

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people planet clients and communities. For more information visit .

WPP Media is WPPs global media a world where media is everywhere and in everything we bring the best platform people and partners together to create limitless opportunities for growth. For more information visit

About Choreograph: A Leading WPP Media Brand

Choreograph is WPPs global data products and technology company. Were on a mission to transform marketing by building the fastest most connected data platform that bridges marketing strategy to scaled activation.

We work with agencies and clients to transform the value of data by bringing together technology data and analytics capabilities. We deliver this through the Open Media Studio an AI-enabled media and data platform for the next era of advertising.

Were endlessly curious. Our team of thinkers builders creators and problem solvers are over 1000 strong across 20 markets around the world.

Role Summary and Impact

We are hiring a Lead Architect Cloud to drive the technical delivery of Azure-based data engineering and cloud configuration engagements within client environments.

As the senior technical authority on the engagement you will design architect and implement modern data platform solutions on Microsoft Azure establish CI/CD practices and guide engineers to follow reference architectures and standards.

You will sit within the Cloud Architecture team partnering closely with Data Engineering Platform/DevOps Security and Client Delivery to ensure designs translate into resilient cost-effective and compliant implementations.

This role combines hands-on architecture with leadership of the technical approach enabling consistent delivery quality across multiple client projects. You will mentor engineers review designs and own key technical decisions and trade-offs.

Area of expertise

• Azure data platform architecture: Data Lake/Lakehouse patterns (ADLS Gen2 Delta Lake) Synapse Analytics and/or Azure Databricks.
• Orchestration and integration using Azure Data Factory (pipelines mapping/wrangling data flows integration runtimes) and event-driven patterns (Event Hubs Service Bus).
• CI/CD for data and infrastructure (Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions) including blue/green deployments approvals and environment promotion.
• Infrastructure-as-Code using Bicep and/or Terraform; reusable modules policy-as-code and environment baselines.
• Secure-by-design cloud configuration: networking private endpoints managed identities Key Vault RBAC Purview governance data masking.
• Data engineering practices: batch and streaming pipelines data quality testing schema management and performance optimization (Spark/Synapse SQL).
• Observability and operations: Azure Monitor Log Analytics Application Insights cost/performance telemetry and SLAs/SLOs for pipelines.
• Azure Well-Architected Framework alignment (reliability security cost performance operations) and FinOps-aware design.
• API and integration design with Azure Functions Logic Apps and API Management for data services.

Skills and Experience

At WPP Media we believe in the power of our culture and our people. Its what elevates us to deliver exceptional experiences for both our clients and each this role it will be critical to embrace WPP & WPP Medias shared core values:

• Be Extraordinary by Leading Collectively to Inspire transformational Creativity.
• Create an Open environment by Balancing People and Client Experiences by Cultivating Trust.
• Lead Optimistically by Championing Growth and Development to Mobilize the Enterprise.

• Hands-on architect who sets clear reference architectures and patterns then leads by example through implementation and code reviews.
• Designs for operability security and cost from the start; makes pragmatic trade-offs and documents decisions.
• Automates everything possible with IaC and CI/CD; favors repeatability over one-off builds.
• Clear communicator who can facilitate client workshops write concise design docs/runbooks and align cross-functional teams.
• Inclusive leader who mentors engineers invites diverse viewpoints and creates shared ownership of outcomes.
• Outcome-focused: measures success with deployment frequency lead time for changes data pipeline SLAs cost efficiency and reliability metrics.
• Consultative and client-facing able to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps and phased delivery.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and end-to-end delivery of Azure data platforms for clients including landing zones networking identity and data platform services (Azure Data Lake Storage Synapse Databricks).
• Design and implement Azure Data Factory pipelines and data flows for ingestion transformation and orchestration; establish patterns for parameterization retries and error handling to meet pipeline SLAs.
• Establish CI/CD for data and infrastructure (Azure DevOps/GitHub): repo strategy branching pull requests multi-stage pipelines approvals environment promotion and artifact/versioning strategy.
• Define and deliver infrastructure-as-code using Bicep and/or Terraform; create reusable modules and policy-as-code guardrails to ensure consistent compliant environments.
• Implement secure-by-default configurations: private endpoints managed identities Key Vault-backed secrets RBAC network isolation data encryption and Purview cataloging/lineage.
• Optimize performance and cost across compute and storage (e.g. Spark cluster sizing autoscaling partitioning caching lifecycle policies serverless options); track and report savings.
• Introduce DataOps practices: automated testing (unit/integration) data quality checks schema enforcement and promotion gates; reduce change failure rate and improve lead time.
• Define monitoring and observability for pipelines and platforms using Azure Monitor Log Analytics and custom metrics; design alerting that drives fast MTTR.
• Guide the design of streaming and micro-batch patterns (Event Hubs Kafka on Azure Structured Streaming) where required by the use case.
• Partner with Security and Platform teams to align with Azure Well-Architected landing zone standards and compliance requirements (e.g. GDPR data controls); support audit-ready documentation.
• Lead technical workshops produce architecture diagrams HLDs/LLDs and runbooks; present designs at client design authorities and steer technical decision-making.
• Provide technical leadership to engineering teams: mentor review code/IaC unblock delivery and ensure adherence to reference architecture and non-functional requirements.
• Plan phased roadmaps and migration paths from legacy platforms; de-risk cutovers through rehearsal and roll-back strategies.
• Contribute to internal accelerators templates and best practices that raise delivery consistency across engagements.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience in cloud data engineering/architecture with a focus on Microsoft Azure.
• Proven leadership as a lead/principal engineer or architect delivering Azure data platforms in client environments.
• Expertise with Azure Data Factory (pipelines data flows integration runtimes) and at least one of Synapse Analytics or Azure Databricks (Spark).
• Strong CI/CD experience using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions for both IaC and data workloads; environment strategy approvals and automated testing.
• Proficiency in Infrastructure-as-Code with Bicep and/or Terraform; reusable modules and policy enforcement (Azure Policy).
• Solid data engineering fundamentals: SQL and one of Python/Scala; performance tuning for Spark/Synapse; data modeling for analytical workloads.
• Secure Azure configuration: VNets private endpoints managed identities Key Vault RBAC; understanding of Purview governance and data protection patterns.
• Observability and operations experience: Azure Monitor Log Analytics alerting pipeline SLAs and incident playbooks.
• Excellent client-facing communication architecture documentation and stakeholder management skills.
• Nice-to-have
• Event-driven architectures with Event Hubs Kafka Stream Analytics or Functions; CDC patterns (e.g. ADF Debezium).
• Lakehouse/Delta patterns on Databricks; MLflow and feature store awareness; Synapse/Dedicated SQL Pools performance optimization.
• Data quality tooling and frameworks (Great Expectations Deequ) and dbt for transformation governance.
• FinOps practices for Azure cost governance and tagging/chargeback models.
• API Management Logic Apps or Power Platform integration experience.
• Experience with Azure landing zones Enterprise Scale architecture and Azure Policy/Blueprints (or equivalent).
• Relevant certifications: Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert Azure Data Engineer Associate or equivalent.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work and were just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions grow their networks and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins sharing thought leadership and celebrating holidays and milestone events. Our benefits include competitive medical group retirement plans vision and dental insurance significant paid time off preferential partner discounts and employee mental health awareness days.

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

We believe the best work happens when were together fostering creativity collaboration and connection. Thats why weve adopted a hybrid approach with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

Please note this is a UK based role and requires individuals to have the right to work in this location

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