Solution Architect

Job Summary

Required Qualifications

• •9+ years of hands-on software or systems engineering experience
• •Experience designing and owning architecture for complex, client-facing solutions
• •Understanding and ability to solve complex client problems that will impact client business
• •Proven ability to evaluate an existing technology landscape and make a clear, defensible recommendation, including build-vs-buy and platform trade-offs
• •Strong grounding across at least two of the following: application architecture, systems/infrastructure design, data architecture, AI/ML solutioning, and DevOps
• •Comfort learning a new domain or stack quickly (just-in-time), with enough hands-on ability to validate an approach yourself rather than only directing others
• •Experience presenting technical recommendations directly to clients, including non-technical and executive stakeholders
• •Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and modern CI/CD practices
• •Solid understanding of databases and data platforms (SQL, NoSQL, and analytics platforms such as BigQuery)
• •Clear, confident communication skills, and the judgment to know when to hold a position and when to adapt it
• •The drive to learn, adapt, and apply to the ever changing technology landscape
• •This is a hands-on and client-facing role
• •You'll move between whiteboard sessions with client executives, deep technical design work, and hands-on prototyping to prove out an approach before committing a team to it
• •You're comfortable weighing cost, timeline, risk, and maintainability against each other, then making a recommendation and standing behind it
• •Assess a client's existing technology landscape (software, systems, data, and infrastructure) and rationalize the pros, cons, and risks of what's in place versus what's proposed
• •Design end-to-end solution architectures spanning application, data, AI/ML, and DevOps concerns, and document them clearly enough for both engineers and executives to act on
• •Present and defend architecture recommendations to client stakeholders, including technical leads and executive sponsors, with support from Codal's delivery and account teams
• •Support discovery, technical planning, and pre-sales conversations, translating client goals and constraints into a scoped, deliverable technical approach
• •Create and maintain architecture decision records that capture the trade-offs considered and the reasoning behind each major decision
• •Guide engineering teams through implementation, staying hands-on where needed (prototyping, code review, unblocking hard technical problems) without holding up delivery
• •Evaluate emerging tools, platforms, and AI capabilities, and bring forward recommendations that would meaningfully improve a client's solution or delivery speed
• •Partner with DevOps, data, and engineering leads to align architecture with CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and data platform realities on the ground
• •Mentor engineers and technical leads on architectural thinking, not just implementation, helping the broader team reason about systems, not just code
• •Support planning, estimation, and risk management across the project lifecycle, flagging architectural risk early
• •Please note this role is open to Chicagoland residents and is not eligible for Visa sponsorship

Desired Qualifications

• •Experience in a consulting or professional services environment, including supporting pre-sales, proposals, or client discovery
• •Experience architecting solutions that incorporate AI/ML capabilities into existing products or platforms
• •Experience leading architecture review boards or similar governance processes
• •A track record of guiding teams through complex technical challenges and ambiguous requirements to a shipped outcome
• •Certifications in a cloud platform or AI such as AWS Solution Architect or Claude Certified Architect