Lead Solution Architect

Lead Solution Architect - Enterprise & Cloud Integration
Location: London - 5 days on-site

Salary: £75-80,000 per annum

Type: Permanent

My client is looking to recruit an accomplished Lead Solution Architect to drive a pivotal transformation in their technology organisation. This is a strategic and highly influential role, where you will define the architectural vision, enable product teams, and bridge modern cloud-native platforms with core enterprise systems-including deep integration with IBM i-series (AS/400) environments and distributed operations.

The Role:
As Lead Solution Architect, you will shape the organisation's technical strategy, mentor architects and engineers, and influence decision-making across technology and business domains. You will lead the transition from a technology stack-oriented delivery model to a product-centric, outcome-driven architecture, ensuring scalability, resilience, and alignment with business objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

Define and drive the enterprise-wide architecture strategy supporting the transition from stack-centric IT to product-led, outcome-focused delivery.
Establish an architectural vision aligned with commercial objectives, customer experience goals, and operational scalability.
Design and govern integration patterns between modern cloud platforms, distributed retail/wholesale sites, and IBM i-series (AS/400) systems.
Champion modernisation of legacy environments, enabling core enterprise capabilities (pricing, inventory, fulfilment) to be consumed via APIs and event-driven interfaces.
Act as a trusted advisor to senior technology and business leaders, shaping product strategy through architecture.
Define and embed architecture principles, standards, and guardrails to support autonomous product teams.
Lead initiatives to transition delivery teams to product-aligned operating models, creating scalable architectural patterns and platforms that accelerate delivery.
Ensure non-functional requirements-including security, observability, resilience, and performance-are embedded in product and platform design.
Oversee architectural governance in a way that enables delivery rather than constrains it.
Mentor and coach solution architects and senior engineers, raising the overall architectural maturity.
Play a leading role in architecture forums, communities of practice, and design reviews.

Candidate Profile:

Extensive experience as a Lead Solution Architect, Principal Architect, or similar senior architecture leadership role.
Proven track record of driving architectural transformation, ideally moving from stack- or project-centric models to product- and outcome-driven architectures.
Deep expertise in enterprise integration and hybrid architecture, including hands-on experience with IBM i-series (AS/400) and distributed retail/wholesale site operations.
Strong understanding of modern architectural paradigms: domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, microservices, API-first.
Experience shaping and scaling architectures on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Exceptional communication and influencing skills with C-level, business stakeholders, and engineering teams.
Strong leadership experience guiding teams through large-scale technical and organisational change.
Exposure to platform engineering, DevOps, or data architecture