Freelance System Engineer / Technical Architect

The role

You will work out what the new government system is and how its parts fit together. You will design the target architecture, build prototypes with the engineers, and set out security and audit needs.

What you will do

• Design the target architecture from high-level requirements and constraints
• Recommend approaches to delegated authority and permissions
• Set out security, resilience and threat risks and mitigations, including agent-specific risks such as prompt injection and automated abuse
• Design and build audit logging and permission checks
• Identify and test the riskiest technical assumptions
• Build working prototypes and proofs of concept with the engineers
• Produce architecture decision records, diagrams and reusable patterns
• Engage with the client's architects, security and assurance experts
• Set out a realistic path from prototype to delivery

Required qualifications

• Significant experience as a technical or solution architect on complex, ambiguous problems
• Strong background in API design, integration patterns and event-driven or distributed systems
• Deep knowledge of how agents interact with other system parts: tools, MCP servers, agent-to-agent protocols
• Experience designing for security, privacy, observability and auditability, including threat modelling
• Experience of authentication and authorisation, including delegated access such as OAuth
• Hands-on coding skills, with the ability to build working prototypes quickly
• Cloud architecture experience (AWS, Azure or GCP) and infrastructure as code
• Ability to explain architecture clearly to designers, policy specialists and senior stakeholders
• Able to work from the London office at least two days a week

Nice to have

• Experience working on UK government services
• Exposure to data-sharing standards and legislation, such as the Digital Economy Act
• An agency or consultancy background

Before you apply

• Hiring process: application with CV and portfolio, screening call, technical interview (about 60 minutes), ways of working interview (about 45 to 60 minutes)

About the company

projectsbyif works with a government department on reimagining a function of government as part of an agentic ecosystem. The team is small and multidisciplinary, working alongside civil servants and the department's technical teams.