Solution Architect job description
A solution architect designs the overall technical approach for a customer or product need. They choose the components, set the standards and make sure the design fits cost, scale and security needs.
Why the role exists
When a project spans several systems, someone must decide how the parts fit together. The solution architect makes those decisions early, explains them to engineers and clients, and checks the build follows them. In India the role appears in IT services, pre-sales teams and product companies.
What the person does
- Study customer requirements and propose a technical design with clear options and trade-offs.
- Draw architecture diagrams that show systems, data flows, integrations and hosting for each solution.
- Support pre-sales calls by presenting the design to client technical teams and answering their questions.
- Review designs from engineers and flag risks in performance, security, cost and maintainability.
- Choose cloud services, frameworks and integration patterns and record why in short decision notes.
- Estimate the effort and infrastructure needs of a solution with delivery leads.
- Guide engineering teams during the build and step in on hard technical problems.
- Keep up with new tools and run internal sessions so teams reuse proven patterns.
Skills and tools
- Designing distributed systems and application architecture
- Cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud
- Integration through APIs, queues and event-driven patterns
- Databases, caching and data modelling choices
- Security and access design at the architecture level
- Architecture diagrams and documentation, including C4 or UML
- Presenting technical options to clients and leadership
- Cost awareness for cloud and licence choices
Education and experience
Preferred, never a bar: equivalent experience counts.
- Degree in engineering, computer science or computer applications preferred, or equivalent practical experience.
- Many years of hands-on development and design experience on production systems is preferred.
- Cloud provider certification is useful but optional, and proven delivery experience can replace it.
- Experience working with customers or business teams to shape a technical solution, or equivalent experience.
How the work is judged
- Fit of the delivered system to the agreed design and to the customer need.
- Quality of architecture documents as rated by engineers and reviewers.
- Accuracy of effort and infrastructure estimates against actual delivery.
- Contribution to winning or retaining customers through technical credibility.
- Reduction in repeated design problems across teams through reusable patterns.
Where the role can lead
- Principal architect or enterprise architect, setting standards across many teams.
- Head of architecture or CTO in smaller companies.
- Technical pre-sales leader or consulting partner for customer-facing work.
Interview questions to ask
Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order and score them against written anchors, so the decision rests on the work and not the impression.
- Describe a system you designed. Which trade-offs did you make and which would you change now?
- How would you design a booking platform that must handle sudden traffic on sale days?
- A client asks for a design that you think is too costly. How do you respond?
- How do you decide between building a service in-house and buying a product?
- Tell us about a design review where you disagreed with a team. How was it settled?
- How do you keep a design from drifting once developers start building?
Hiring tips for this role
- Run a design exercise on a realistic problem and ask the candidate to explain choices on a whiteboard. Look for reasoning, not buzzwords.
- Check that the person still understands code. Architects who stopped building years ago often design what teams cannot deliver.
- Clarify whether the role is customer-facing pre-sales or internal product architecture, as the skills and temperament differ.
- Ask what failed in past designs. Candidates who can describe mistakes and fixes usually have real depth.
Questions about hiring a solution architect
A solution architect designs how several systems, services and vendors come together to solve a customer or business need. A software architect usually focuses on the internal structure of one product. Companies often blur the two titles.
There is no fixed number. Look for enough hands-on delivery to have seen designs succeed and fail, plus experience explaining designs to clients. Depth and judgement matter more than the count of years.
Not always. Certifications show structured knowledge of a platform, but practical delivery matters more. Treat them as a useful signal and test real design thinking in the interview.
Yes, for permanent roles. GullyHR agrees the job description with you, finds and screens candidates and supports the offer. A clear brief on tech stack, customer exposure and scope helps us find the right fit.
Hiring a solution architect?
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles. We agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.