Design Lead / Senior Solution Architect

As a Design Lead / Senior Solution Architect, you will shape end-to-end technology solutions that align with business objectives, enterprise architecture standards, and product strategy — providing architectural leadership across multiple initiatives, guiding engineering teams through complex design challenges, and driving innovation through modern cloud, AI, and distributed system architectures.

You will collaborate closely with product managers, business stakeholders, UX teams, engineering leaders, and development teams to ensure scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions, blending strategic thinking, technical leadership, and hands-on architecture expertise to power our AI-driven technology transformation.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end solution architecture for enterprise-grade applications and platforms.
• Define architecture blueprints, design standards, technology roadmaps, and implementation strategies.
• Lead architecture reviews and establish best practices for development teams.
• Create high-level and low-level solution designs addressing functional and non-functional requirements.
• Drive architectural decisions around scalability, resilience, security, observability, and performance.
• Ensure alignment of solutions with enterprise architecture guidelines and business objectives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend strategic adoption opportunities.
• Mentor and guide development teams on architecture patterns, design principles, and engineering practices.
• Lead technical discussions with engineering, product, operations, and business stakeholders.
• Support complex problem-solving initiatives and critical system design decisions.
• Facilitate architecture governance and design review forums.
• Partner with DevOps and Cloud Engineering teams to optimise deployment and operational models.
• Design cloud-native solutions leveraging AWS and equivalent cloud platforms.
• Architect microservices, event-driven systems, API ecosystems, and integration platforms.
• Define cloud security, networking, and disaster recovery strategies.
• Identify and implement opportunities for AI-powered solutions within business applications.
• Architect integrations with AI services such as Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Hugging Face, and similar platforms.
• Champion AI-assisted engineering practices, productivity tools, and intelligent automation.
• Guide teams on responsible adoption of generative AI capabilities and architecture patterns.
• Lead architecture discussions with senior business and technology stakeholders, translating requirements into scalable solutions.
• Present architecture strategies and technical recommendations to executive audiences.
• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Strong experience designing enterprise-scale solutions using .NET, .NET Core, C#, and modern application frameworks.
• Deep understanding of software architecture principles, design patterns, domain-driven design, and object-oriented design concepts.
• Proven expertise in microservices architecture, event-driven systems, distributed computing, and API-led integration.
• Strong working knowledge of enterprise integration patterns and RESTful API design.
• Experience designing modern web platforms utilising Angular and contemporary front-end architectures.
• Expertise with relational databases such as SQL Server and NoSQL platforms including MongoDB and Cosmos DB.
• Proven experience leveraging AI-enabled engineering tools such as GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Amazon CodeWhisperer, or equivalent solutions.
• Experience designing and integrating AI services into enterprise applications.
• Ability to evaluate and implement AI/ML-driven solutions that improve operational efficiency and business outcomes.
• Familiarity with prompt engineering, LLM integration frameworks, RAG architectures, and AI-powered automation.
• Excellent strategic thinking, problem-solving, and stakeholder management capabilities, with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Extensive years of experience in software engineering and solution delivery, including in solution architecture, technical design leadership, or enterprise architecture roles.
• Demonstrated success delivering large-scale enterprise solutions in cloud and distributed environments, leading cross-functional teams.

Desirable Skills

• Experience architecting and optimising large-scale distributed systems in cloud environments.
• Strong understanding of application performance engineering, observability, monitoring, and operational excellence.
• Experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, and platform automation.
• Knowledge of enterprise security architecture, identity management, and compliance frameworks.
• Experience supporting web and enterprise platform operations in production environments.
• Hands-on scripting and automation experience using PowerShell, Python, or Bash.
• AWS Solutions Architect, TOGAF, Azure Architect, or similar industry certifications.

Equal Opportunities Statement
At Gresham, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We actively encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds and are dedicated to providing a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and supported.

We make employment decisions based on merit, skills and potential, and do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic. We are also committed to making reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process and employment lifecycle.