Senior Solution Architecture

Scotland, United Kingdom

7/25/2025

Our organization is at the forefront of innovation, driving value across the entirety of the customers’ digital and AI transformation journey through repeatable and customized cutting-edge solutions powered by Microsoft Cloud and AI. We take pride in embodying Microsoft's mission of empowerment, promoting a growth mindset, inspiring excellence, and fostering a culture of inclusivity where everyone is encouraged to share their unique perspectives and be their authentic selves. By joining our team, you'll have the opportunity to contribute to life-changing innovations that impact billions of people worldwide.

The Solution Architect is responsible for translating the client’s business requirements into specific systems, applications, or process designs for very large complex technology solutions and architectures. You’ll act as an advocate for the client as the ultimate authority on the architecture designed to address client business problems. You’ll provide direction for design activities, often project-based, sometimes working at customer sites. You will have the opportunity to further your product development and AI solution knowledge, team leadership and technical problem solving.

As a Solution Architect you’ll gather customer insights from a broad range of stakeholders to shape and form both the definition and ongoing execution of projects. You’ll define and document the architecture to communicate the value proposition of the business solution along with the project approach. Collaborating with the Project Manager you’ll jointly drive project/technical governance of the design, build, and deployment into use. You’ll work with the business sponsor and customer stakeholders to gather and ratify requirements and constraints and collaborating with the Account Team and/or Bid Team to understand the business solution/problem. This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

• You will be responsible for identifying, agreeing and delivering technical outcomes for Microsoft customers, meeting agreed technical and business goals.
• You will gather customer insights from a broad range of stakeholders as well as the main business sponsor to shape and form both the definition and ongoing execution of projects and work with customer/ stakeholders and business sponsor to socialize both the business solution and the project approach to determine if changes are needed to the business solution.
• You will use evidence-based approach to represent the customer and share insights with Product Engineering teams and the business with a view to improving Microsoft technologies, products, services and offerings such that they can better meet customer needs.
• You will define and document the Architecture through an architecture description document, an architecture decisions log, and a requirements/constraints traceability matrix to communicate the value proposition of the business solution along with the project approach.
• You will work with customers to understand and demonstrate business value (e.g., release of revenue, cost savings) that the business solution realizes and manage and resolve ambiguity in the requirements and constraints and documents assumptions and implications where it cannot be resolved.
• You will generate new and/or improvements to existing intellectual property. Connects gaps and patterns across business and technology areas to drive changes.
• You will identify which ideas should be culled, with consideration for scale across customers and drive the re-use of intellectual property and recommends practices in both pre-sales and delivery as well as participate and contribute to internal/external communities.
• You will lead virtual teams around technologies and customer/partner challenges by sharing ideas, insight, and strategic, technical input with technical teams, internal communities across the field and the larger virtual team across Microsoft using knowledge of Microsoft architectures and their context in the competitive landscape.
  
  

Qualifications

Required Qualifications (RQs)

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years experience in technology solutions, practice development, architecture, consulting, and/or technology domain (e.g., Security)

OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years experience in technology solutions, practice development, architecture, consulting, and/or technology domain (e.g., Security)

OR equivalent experience

2+ years managing multiple projects or portfolios

1+ year(s) experience leading blended, multidisciplinary teams

As a preference, this role may require you to hold or be able to obtain, at minimum, the Security Check (SC) clearance as issued by The United Kingdom Security Vetting Unit (UKSV). Note: To be eligible to apply for the Security Check (SC) clearance, you must be currently residing in the UK and be a UK national or have been a resident in the UK for a minimum of five years.

Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field AND 12+ years experience in technology solutions, practice development, architecture, consulting, and/or technology domain (e.g., Security)

OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology,

Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years experience in technology solutions, practice development, architecture, consulting, and/or technology domain (e.g., Security)

OR equivalent experience

• Experience engaging in large scale consulting programmes of work (including estimation models, scoping, development of budgetary estimates, writing proposals)
• Extensive experience designing and delivering solutions on Microsoft Azure, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services
• Technical acumen and problem-solving skills, able to architect robust, scalable solutions and address complex technical challenges
• Experience working closely with application development teams, setting technical vision, standards, and roadmaps
• Solid understanding of DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and the overall software delivery lifecycle
• Excellent communication skills; able to convey technical vision and strategy to clients and senior stakeholders, including C-suite executives
• Hands-on knowledge of data services, including Azure Data Lake, Azure Fabric, and modern data architectures
• Experience with other hyper-cloud platforms such as AWS and GCP, including hybrid and multi-cloud solution design
• Proven understanding of Generative AI (GenAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), and Machine Learning, including practical knowledge of platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, and how to apply AI/ML to achieve real business outcomes
• Refactoring of applications to adopt Azure based cloud native technologies including Kubernetes services, Azure Container Applications, Azure SQL, CosmosDB, Application Gateway, Container Registry and Event Hub.
• Ability to produce high-quality architectural documentation and reference architectures
• Awareness of security, compliance, and governance in cloud environments
  
  

Relevant Azure certifications (e.g., Azure Solutions Architect Expert)

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.