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.