Solution Architect
Job Description
The solution architect is a hybrid role: a strategic and technical lead who shapes complex modernization pursuits and then stays on to lead the solution through delivery. You will spend most of your time billable on client engagements, leading teams and owning the architecture and quality of what ships. You will also support pursuits, so the solutions we sell are the ones we know we can deliver.
Expect a typical split of 80% billable delivery and 20% pursuit and offering work, varying by engagement phase.
You will help clients move from aging, costly and hard-to-change systems to modern platforms they can evolve with confidence. That means assessing legacy estates, defining target architectures and migration paths, and leading teams that deliver them incrementally with minimal disruption to the business. You will design for scalability, availability, security, performance, maintainability and observability so modernized systems run reliably in production.
Job responsibilities
1. Delivery leadership and solution ownership
- Lead the technical direction of one or more modernization engagements from mobilization through stabilization.
- Guide delivery teams day to day: set technical standards, unblock engineers, review designs and code, and coach developers, tech leads and architects.
- Partner with delivery managers, product leads and client stakeholders to plan scope, sequence migration waves and manage technical risk.
- Stay hands-on where it matters: pair with engineers, build prototypes, resolve hard design problems and validate that the architecture works in practice.
- Own the architecture roadmap during delivery, including technical debt, dependencies and trade-offs, and report progress against business outcomes.
- Establish and maintain architectural guardrails, engineering practices and governance so quality holds as teams scale.
- Introduce modern engineering practices into client teams: continuous delivery, test automation, infrastructure as code and trunk-based development.
- Support client technical teams during cutover and handover, including operational readiness, documentation and capability building.
2. Modernization architecture and value realization
- Assess legacy applications, data and infrastructure to understand dependencies, risks, cost and constraints, and recommend a modernization path for each (retire, rehost, replatform, refactor or rebuild).
- Define target architectures and migration strategies that favor incremental change, such as strangler patterns, domain-driven decomposition and parallel runs, over big-bang rewrites.
- Design modern application, integration and data architectures, including APIs, event-driven patterns, cloud-native platforms and data migration approaches.
- Own enterprise-grade architecture that addresses scalability, availability, performance, security, maintainability, testability, interoperability and observability.
- Define reference architectures and reusable patterns across application, platform and data layers.
- Express architectural decisions in business outcomes such as delivery speed, run cost, reliability, risk reduction and customer experience.
- Validate feasibility with proofs of concept, thin-slice migrations and prototypes before committing to a full approach.
- Apply accelerators, design patterns and reusable assets to improve consistency and speed.
- Bring a clear point of view on data management, governance and platforms, and on how data moves safely from legacy to modern systems.
3. Opportunity shaping and pursuit support
- Work with business development and market teams to assess modernization opportunities that fit our strategic themes and industry focus.
- Lead or support client discovery conversations to frame business challenges, define value hypotheses and identify where modernization removes constraints on growth, cost or speed.
- Shape the technology approach, engagement vision and team model before formal proposal development.
- Develop solution vision artifacts, current-state assessments, target architectures and thin-slice roadmaps.
- Contribute to win themes so the solution narrative reflects business value, risk mitigation and delivery confidence.
- Bring delivery experience into pursuits, so estimates, assumptions and team models reflect what we have built and run.
4. Proposal development and executive alignment
- Lead the technical and architecture narrative in proposals and executive presentations.
- Explain complex technical concepts to executives through architecture visuals, migration timelines and quantified value projections.
- Work with finance and delivery leads so assumptions, especially on migration effort, run-cost savings and benefits timing, match the commercial model and delivery reality.
- Present and defend solution approaches in executive and technical forums, balancing vision with pragmatism.
5. Practice and capability building
- Run retrospectives and feed lessons from delivery back into our accelerators, reference architectures and offerings.
- Work with internal teams to turn migration patterns, tooling and engineering playbooks into assets other teams can use.
- Mentor architects and engineers, and contribute to hiring and community.
Job qualifications
- Experience designing and delivering complex technology solutions in enterprise environments, including time in the engineering and delivery of those solutions.
- Experience leading architecture and technical teams on live, billable client engagements, from kickoff through production.
- Track record of leading modernization programs, such as monolith decomposition, cloud migration, platform replatforming or legacy system replacement, through to delivery.
- Deep experience across cloud, data and enterprise platforms, including migrating data and integrations with minimal business disruption.
- Strong grounding in modern architecture and engineering practices: domain-driven design, APIs, event-driven architecture, microservices (and when not to use them), CI/CD, automated testing and observability.
- Hands-on familiarity with AWS, Azure or GCP.
- Experience leading architecture for large pursuits or programs, and seeing that work through to delivery.
- Ability to work at financial, strategic and technical levels, connecting business outcomes to architecture choices.
- Strong executive communication: you can explain technology so C-suite stakeholders act on it.
- Confidence leading cross-functional teams while balancing delivery speed with technical excellence.
- Comfort moving between conceptual vision and hands-on detail.
- A trusted advisor mindset: you guide clients through complexity and balance risk, cost and impact.
Other things to know
Learning & Development
There is no one-size-fits-all career path at Thoughtworks: however you want to develop your career is entirely up to you. But we also balance autonomy with the strength of our cultivation culture. This means your career is supported by interactive tools, numerous development programs and teammates who want to help you grow. We see value in helping each other be our best and that extends to empowering our employees in their career journeys.
Responsible Use of AI in Recruitment
At Thoughtworks, we use AI tools to support our recruitment team with administrative tasks such as drafting communications, scheduling interviews and writing job descriptions.
Crucially, our AI tools do not screen, assess, rank or make hiring decisions. Every application is reviewed by our team and all selection decisions are made exclusively by our interviewers and hiring managers.
We are committed to fairness and responsible AI. We actively manage our AI systems by testing, monitoring for biased outcomes and implementing mitigation measures. We hold our third-party vendors to these same high standards through a rigorous governance process. For additional information, please see our full Thoughtworks AI Policy for Recruitment.
About Thoughtworks
Thoughtworks is a dynamic and inclusive community of bright and supportive colleagues who are revolutionizing tech. As a leading technology consultancy, we’re pushing boundaries through our purposeful and impactful work. For 30+ years, we’ve delivered extraordinary impact together with our clients by helping them solve complex business problems with technology as the differentiator. Bring your brilliant expertise and commitment for continuous learning to Thoughtworks. Together, let’s be extraordinary.
EEO Statement
Thoughtworks is an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind and are dedicated to providing a work environment free from discrimination and harassment. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, stermination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.
Thoughtworks is also an affirmative action employer of veterans and individuals with disabilities.
For additional information, please see the Thoughtworks, Inc. Equal Employment Opportunity & Affirmative Action Policy Statement.
Accommodations
Thoughtworks is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities and to applicants with sincerely held religious beliefs throughout the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to apply or participate in the interview process, please complete this form or speak with your recruiter.
US - Work Authorization
Applicants for employment in the US must have work authorization that does not now or in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment in the United States.
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Salary
Benefits: https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-us/careers/benefits
The annual salary range posted is subject to many factors and may vary depending on experience, geographic location, job responsibilities, performance, skills and/or training.
