Contract: 3–6 months (immediate start)
Location: Hybrid (Manchester 2 days every 2 weeks)

We’re On the Beach! Since 2003, we've been rewriting the rules of how people discover, book, and experience their perfect getaway. What started as connecting people to short-haul beach holidays has evolved into something much bigger - premium beach destinations, long-haul adventures, and vibrant city breaks – and that’s just the beginning of our story.

We send around two million holidaymakers on their dream breaks every year. And we're still growing.

We’re embarking on a short-term but high-impact engagement to assess and strengthen the architectural foundations of our platform as we prepare for our next phase of growth.

We’re looking for an experienced Lead Software Architect on an initial contract basis to lead a comprehensive review of our end-to-end platform architecture — spanning search, booking, payments and inventory management.

This engagement will surface key architectural risks, highlight scalability bottlenecks, and validate that our technical and organisational structures are set up for sustainable success.

You’ll work closely with our leadership team to provide a clear, data-driven understanding of where we are today — and what we must do to be ready for tomorrow.

What you’ll be doing

Join us and help shape the future of travel technology through data-informed architectural insight and technical leadership. You’ll independently lead a structured review and deliver practical recommendations to strengthen our platform and organisation:

• Conduct a comprehensive architecture assessment across all key domains — search, booking, payments, and inventory.
• Map dependencies and integration points, identifying areas of fragility or high coupling.
• Evaluate technical debt and its impact on reliability, scalability, and delivery velocity.
• Assess scalability patterns and identify bottlenecks ahead of peak trading periods.
• Review disaster recovery, resilience, and security posture, recommending improvements.
• Identify single points of failure and areas of concentrated knowledge or ownership.
• Validate proposed team structure changes against system boundaries and ownership needs.
• Deliver clear, actionable recommendations and a prioritised roadmap for improvement.

Key Deliverables

You’ll provide clear, outcome-based deliverables that help drive confidence and focus:

Early findings presentation covering high-level architecture map and initial risk overview. 

Deep-dive assessments of 2–3 highest-risk domains with detailed analysis and recommendations. 

Organisational structure validation report aligned to architectural boundaries and ownership models. 

Final comprehensive report, including 

• Architecture documentation and dependency maps
• Prioritised risk register with mitigation strategies
• Organisational and process recommendations
• 90-day roadmap for addressing critical gaps

About you

You bring a deep technical foundation and a strategic mindset, with the ability to navigate complex systems and influence positive change.

• Extensive commercial experience in similar software engineering or architecture roles, ideally with data-heavy, high-traffic systems.
• Experience leading architecture assessments for large-scale consumer platforms.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, data flows, and integration architectures.
• Proven track record of identifying and mitigating architectural risk across multiple domains.
• Familiarity with legacy system modernisation and defining future-state architectures.
• Experience with search systems, real-time data challenges, and capacity planning.
• Technical exposure to Ruby, .NET, and cloud-native environments (AWS preferred)
• Excellent communication skills — able to translate complex findings into actionable recommendations for diverse audiences.

Success criteria

• Clear visibility into architectural risks and system dependencies.
• Validated alignment between team structures and technical boundaries.
• Actionable mitigation plans for key architectural risks.
• Improved architectural documentation and shared understanding across teams.
• Organisation prepared for sustained growth and peak performance periods.

What to expect from our interview process

We’ll run a multiple stage interview process, one stage of which will include an in-person interview at our fabulous Aeroworks office in Manchester city centre.

We want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to perform at their best. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the interview process please let the Talent Acquisition team know and they will be happy to assist.

Ways of working
Our full time hours are 37.5 per week, but we don't have rigid working hours so you can find the working pattern that's right for you. We have core working hours between 10am - 4pm, so we can collaborate and enjoy the social side of work.

We also have hybrid working so we all work from home and from our Aeroworks office in Manchester City Centre. You’ll be in the office one day every two weeks, and you’re more than welcome to come in more if you’d like.