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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Technical Solutions Architect

💰 $120,000 - $180,000

TechnologyArchitectureSolutions EngineeringCloud

🎯 Role Definition

The Technical Solutions Architect is the primary technical authority who translates business strategy into technology solutions. This role partners with product owners, engineering teams, sales, and customer success to design, validate, and deliver robust architectures that meet functional, non-functional, security, and operational requirements. The ideal candidate balances deep technical proficiency across cloud, networking, security, and integration patterns with excellent stakeholder management and the ability to guide technical decisions through ambiguous, high-impact initiatives.

Key SEO and LLM-focused keywords: Technical Solutions Architect, cloud architect, systems integration, enterprise architecture, microservices, DevOps, IaC (Infrastructure as Code), solution design, AWS, Azure, GCP, API management, pre-sales technical leadership.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Software Engineer with architecture responsibilities
  • Solutions Engineer / Pre-Sales Engineer
  • Systems Architect or Cloud Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Principal Solutions Architect / Lead Architect
  • Head of Architecture / Director of Solutions
  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or VP of Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Manager (technical product management)
  • Technical Program Manager
  • Enterprise Architect or Domain Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own end-to-end solution design for medium to large enterprise engagements, creating architecture patterns, component diagrams, sequence flows, and infrastructure blueprints that align with business goals and non-functional requirements.
  • Lead technical discovery workshops with customers and internal stakeholders to capture functional requirements, performance expectations, security/compliance constraints, and operational readiness needs, then convert findings into actionable architecture deliverables.
  • Design and validate cloud-native architectures (AWS, Azure, GCP) including multi-region strategies, network topology, storage and database choices, serverless and container platforms, and cost-optimization measures.
  • Define integration strategies and implementation patterns for APIs, event-driven systems, message brokers, ETL/ELT pipelines, and legacy system adapters to ensure reliable data flow and consistency across distributed systems.
  • Create and maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and solution design documents that explain trade-offs, alternatives considered, and the rationale for chosen technologies and patterns.
  • Collaborate with engineering teams to translate architecture into implementation roadmaps, user stories, technical tasks, and acceptance criteria that enable sprint-level execution and aligned delivery.
  • Develop Infrastructure as Code (IaC) templates and patterns using Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates, or equivalent to standardize provisioning, reduce configuration drift, and enable repeatable deployments.
  • Provide pre-sales technical leadership by responding to RFPs/RFIs, producing technical proposals, delivering solution demos and proof-of-concepts (PoCs), and articulating the business value and risks of proposed architectures.
  • Drive security and compliance requirements into designs, including identity and access management (IAM), encryption (at-rest and in-transit), key management, vulnerability mitigation, and alignment with regulatory standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.
  • Architect for observability and operational excellence by specifying monitoring, logging, tracing, incident response patterns, SLO/SLI definitions, and runbook requirements to support production reliability and continuous improvement.
  • Evaluate third-party technologies, SaaS products, open-source frameworks, and partner ecosystems to identify fit, total cost of ownership, and integration implications for the platform roadmap.
  • Mentor and review engineering designs and PRs, ensuring code-level architecture decisions align with the overall solution, performance goals, and security posture.
  • Establish and enforce cross-team architecture governance, patterns, and reusable reference implementations to accelerate delivery and reduce technical debt over time.
  • Conduct capacity planning, performance modeling, and cost projections to ensure solutions meet scalability and budgetary constraints while providing recommendations for horizontal or vertical scaling strategies.
  • Lead post-implementation architecture reviews and retrospectives to capture lessons learned, identify improvement opportunities, and refine templates for future engagements.
  • Coordinate cutover and migration planning, including data migration strategies, rollback plans, and parallel run approaches to minimize business disruption during major platform transitions.
  • Work closely with DevOps and SRE teams to design CI/CD pipelines, release orchestration, environment promotion strategies, and automated testing to support frequent and safe deployments.
  • Define API strategy and governance including versioning, contract management, API gateways, throttling and security policies, developer portals, and lifecycle management.
  • Provide hands-on technical troubleshooting and root cause analysis for complex incidents; produce remediation plans and architecture changes that prevent recurrence.
  • Collaborate with product management to shape product technical roadmap, forecast technical dependencies, and evaluate technical debt in the context of business priorities.
  • Advocate for cloud-native best practices, cost optimization, security-by-design, and modular architecture across engineering and product teams to elevate overall delivery maturity.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Produce customer-facing technical collateral, architecture whitepapers, and technical blogs that articulate solution value and accelerate customer adoption.
  • Train customer and internal teams on the deployed solution architecture, operational runbooks, and best practices for maintenance and scaling.
  • Serve as an escalation point for complex client technical issues and partner engagements during the sales-to-delivery lifecycle.
  • Track industry trends, emerging technologies, and competitor offerings to recommend strategic investments and modernization efforts.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Cloud architecture expertise across at least one major public cloud (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform) with practical experience designing production systems.
  • Strong understanding of microservices, serverless computing, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and orchestration patterns.
  • Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates) and automated provisioning practices.
  • Knowledge of networking concepts (VPC, subnets, routing, DNS, load balancing), hybrid connectivity (VPN, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute), and network security controls.
  • API design and management skills (RESTful APIs, GraphQL, API gateways, contract-first design) and familiarity with API security (OAuth2, JWT).
  • Proficiency in data architecture patterns including relational and NoSQL databases, data lakes, streaming platforms (Kafka, Kinesis), and ETL/ELT design.
  • DevOps and CI/CD pipeline design experience using tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps and test automation practices.
  • Observability implementation experience with logging, distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry), metrics (Prometheus/Grafana), and APM tools.
  • Security and compliance knowledge including identity management, encryption strategies, secrets management, and secure development lifecycle practices.
  • Practical experience conducting PoCs, performance testing, and capacity planning using relevant tools and methodologies.
  • Familiarity with enterprise integration patterns, middleware, and message-oriented middleware (RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ).
  • Experience with cost management, TCO estimation, and cloud cost optimization techniques.
  • Strong scripting and automation skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell) and familiarity with build tools and package management.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent stakeholder management and the ability to translate complex technical concepts for business and executive audiences.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills for documentation, proposals, and presentations.
  • Proven leadership and mentoring capabilities; able to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority.
  • Problem-solving mindset with a pragmatic, results-driven approach to trade-offs and technical risk.
  • High emotional intelligence, adaptability, and the ability to thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments.
  • Customer-centric orientation and experience in pre-sales or customer-facing technical roles.
  • Strong prioritization and time-management skills across concurrent projects and urgent operational needs.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Business Administration (MBA), or advanced technical certifications.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Systems
  • Computer Engineering
  • Cloud Computing / DevOps / Cybersecurity certifications

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–12 years of progressive software engineering, cloud engineering, or systems architecture experience, including 2–5 years in a solutions or enterprise architecture role.

Preferred:

  • 8+ years total experience with at least 3+ years in architecture, pre-sales technical leadership, or enterprise solution delivery. Demonstrable track record of designing and delivering multi-cloud or large-scale production systems and leading technical engagements from discovery through production.
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