Job Description: Solution Architect
Place: Remote
Compensation: $$/hourly
The solution architect’s job focuses on solution-level decisions and analysis of their impact on the overall business goals and outcomes. Just like the architect in the construction industry creating a general blueprint of a future building, a person at this position must have a profound knowledge of available technologies to suggest the best solution according to the incoming requirements and existing environment. So, we can say that the product of a solution architect’s job is the set of technological solutions and the strategy of their implementation.
After developing a strategic technical vision of the product, the solution architect is involved in estimating the budget and presenting it to the stakeholders. Once everything is agreed upon, he or she monitors the process of development and keeps stakeholders informed about the progress.
A Solution Architect’s responsibilities directly derive from processes in practice:
While most of these responsibilities require a leadership role from a solution architect, this person just supports Capture Management and PM activities to ensure that resources, risk recognition, and planning stay aligned with the solution goals.
Technical background and experience
To provide management (Capture) and engineering teams with technical advice, a solution architect must have a technical background with at least eight years of work experience in one or more IT areas including but not limited to:
Responsibilities
Experience
Personal Attributes
Excellent communication skills Deep analytical skills Project and resource management skills Work collaboratively Influence and negotiate Excellent communication skills
A vital part of the solution architect’s competence is communication. Considering that this role entails negotiating with stakeholders, understanding the needs of all parties, managing risks, and product delivery, the lack of communication skills can create a real bottleneck. The position requires working closely with enterprise and software companies, business analysts, and project teams. So, an experienced solution architect should be able to listen, advise, empathize, and explain.
Deep analytical skills
Designing a solution requires understanding how different parts of the business work together. The architect must recognize the corporate strategy and realize all business processes that define how a company achieves its strategic goals. But, the architect must also understand tech specifics. As a result, solution architects constantly deal with analytical work and move between various business layers.
Project and resource management skills
While a solution architect doesn’t directly get involved in project management, accounting for deadlines and given resources is inevitable. Solution architects must be able to make decisions about which solutions are advantageous and which are worthless in the particular situation. They must be focused on business results and understand how to achieve them according to the given timeframes and resources.
Besides that, it’s important that solution architects consider the project in a long-term perspective and understand that the solution might need to scale and adapt to possible changes in the future. So, being the one who knows the ultimate target, they guide the development process accordingly.