Lead Architect in Sydney

Newly created permanent role, based out of our Brisbane or Sydney office (hybrid). We’re the airline that dares to be different, bold, down-to-earth and built around giving our guests real choice. Safety is our backbone, service is our heartbeat, and our people are our superpower. At Virgin Australia, we’re on a mission to be Australia’s most loved airline, for our people, our guests and our owners — and we’re looking for passionate talent to help take us even higher. We’re vibrant, authentic and unapologetically human. Here, you can bring your whole self, your Virgin Flair and your ambition to a team that champions individuality, innovation and a whole lot of heart. If you’re excited by meaningful work, real opportunities to grow, and a culture where you can genuinely make a difference, you’ll feel right at home with us.

Your Impact In our IT team, we’re the engine room that keeps Virgin Australia running smoothly, blending technical excellence with that signature Virgin spirit. We’re curious problem solvers who move fast, think smart and own our impact. As our Lead Architect – ServiceNow (internally called "Technical Lead"), you’ll work within our Infrastructure & Cloud division to be the technical authority for one of our key enterprise workflow platforms, helping shape how ServiceNow is designed, integrated and evolved across Virgin Australia. You’ll assess new ServiceNow solutions, integrations, configurations and requests from across the business, ensuring they are technically sound, scalable and aligned to our architecture and engineering standards. From there, you’ll turn requirements into detailed technical designs and guide solutions through implementation and into production. This is a highly influential, hands‑on architecture role. You’ll work across Engineering, Architecture, Security, Product, Delivery, vendors and business stakeholders — challenging designs when needed, negotiating the right technical outcome and translating complex technology considerations into clear business choices. The broader role is accountable for technical direction, solution‑design quality, engineering practices, dependencies and operational readiness across enterprise workflow platforms.

You’ll also:

• Provide technical leadership and design oversight across our ServiceNow environment, with exposure to the broader Atlassian ecosystem.
• Assess proposed solutions, integrations, access, configurations and enhancements for technical feasibility and alignment.
• Produce detailed technical designs and guide implementation from design through build, testing, deployment and support.
• Establish and champion strong engineering practices across testing, documentation, automation, reliability and maintainability.
• Identify and manage technical debt, dependencies, platform risks and operational constraints.
• Partner with internal teams and vendors to resolve complex technical issues and remove delivery blockers.
• Translate technical risks and options into clear recommendations for senior stakeholders.

The role does not have direct reports, so this is ideal for someone who wants to remain close to the technology while having significant influence over technical direction and engineering quality.

You’ll be great in this role if you… You’re a ServiceNow specialist who has built deep technical expertise over several years and is comfortable operating at architecture or senior technical‑design level. You don’t necessarily need to have held a “Lead Architect” title before — you could currently be a ServiceNow Architect, Technical Lead, Senior Developer or Senior Engineer who is already operating at this level. Most importantly, you’ll bring:

• At least five years of senior ServiceNow experience, including significant solution design and/or architecture responsibility.
• Deep technical knowledge of ServiceNow — this is essential for the role.
• Experience with the Atlassian suite, particularly Jira and Confluence, would be highly regarded, but deep ServiceNow expertise is the priority.
• Experience assessing complex designs, integrations, configurations and technical proposals.
• Strong software/platform engineering fundamentals spanning design quality, testing, security, reliability, production support and technical debt.
• The confidence to challenge a proposed approach and negotiate the right technical outcome based on business and technology needs.
• The ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear recommendations for non-technical stakeholders and senior leaders.

What you’ll get from us We’re committed to looking after you, with some of the best benefits and conditions in the industry, including:

• Discounted flights for you and your loved ones, including $1,000 in annual travel credits
• A flexible, hybrid way of working
• Discounts on travel insurance, Lounge membership, car hire, accommodation and experiences worldwide
• Discounts across hospitality, retail, technology, beauty and wellness
• Free counselling and access to a wellbeing app supporting your physical, mental, social and financial health
• Dress for Your Day — the freedom to dress for the work and day you have ahead of you.

When everyone is included, everyone wins We’re all individuals. And we love that. That’s why we encourage applications from Indigenous Australians, people with disability, those from diverse cultural backgrounds, our friends in the LGBTQI+ community, and anyone else who wants to join our family.