AWS Solution Architect

Virtual Hire Staffing; Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Virtual Hire Staffing in Cambridge is seeking an experienced Solution Architect to design and lead scalable cloud-native systems on AWS. You will drive architecture for distributed microservices powered by event-driven patterns, collaborating with engineering, product, and business stakeholders to translate complex requirements into production-grade solutions.

You will define end-to-end architectures, lead domain-driven design, and set patterns for resilience, observability, and security.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering, including 3+ years in a dedicated architecture role.
• Deep AWS expertise across core compute, storage and networking services.
• Microservices design experience: DDD, API design, service mesh, resilience patterns.
• Hands-on with event-driven patterns - Kafka, SQS/SNS, EventBridge or Kinesis.
• Infrastructure as Code - Terraform and/or AWS CDK.
• Strong container experience - Docker, Kubernetes, EKS, ECS.
• Established CI/CD pipeline and DevOps practice experience.
• Excellent stakeholder communication - comfortable presenting to both engineers and executives.

Responsibilities

• Define end-to-end architectures aligned to business goals and own the technical roadmap across product domains.
• Lead service decomposition with DDD and define API contracts (REST/GraphQL/gRPC).
• Design event streaming and async messaging with Kafka, SQS/SNS, EventBridge and Kinesis.
• Define AWS infrastructure across EKS, Lambda, ECS/Fargate, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, CloudFront; lead IaC standards.
• Partner with engineering leads and executives to align tech strategy with business goals.
• Embed security from day one (IAM, KMS, WAF) and drive cost optimisation.
• Mentor engineers on architecture patterns and cloud-native practices.

Skills

8+ years in software engineering

3+ years in architecture

Excellent stakeholder communication

Tools

AWS

Kafka

SQS/SNS

EventBridge

Kinesis

Terraform

AWS CDK

Docker

Kubernetes

EKS

ECS

DynamoDB

S3

RDS

IAM

KMS

CloudFront

VPC

CI/CD

Job description

Required Skills

• AWS
• Solution Architect
• IaC
• REST
• GraphQL
• DDD
• KAfka
• SQQS
• SNS
• DynamoDB
• IAM
• KMS
• WAF
• CDK
• Terraform
• Kinesis

Job Summary

Solution Architect

AWS | Microservices & Event-Driven Architecture

Cambridge - Hybrid - 2 days

The Opportunity

We're looking for an experienced Solution Architect to design and lead the implementation of scalable, cloud-native systems on AWS. You'll work across engineering, product and business stakeholders to define architecture for distributed microservices platforms powered by event-driven patterns - turning complex requirements into resilient, production-grade solutions. This is a high-impact, highly collaborative role. You'll be the technical authority on architecture decisions, shaping the standards and patterns engineering teams follow across the organisation.

What You'll Do

• Define end-to-end system architectures aligned to business goals, run architecture reviews and threat modelling sessions, and own the technical roadmap across multiple product domains.
• Lead service decomposition using Domain-Driven Design - defining bounded contexts, inter-service contracts, and REST/GraphQL/gRPC APIs - and set patterns for resilience (circuit breakers, retries, bulkheads) and observability (distributed tracing, structured logging, metrics).
• Design event streaming and async messaging using Kafka, Amazon SQS/SNS, EventBridge and Kinesis, including event schema standards, event sourcing, CQRS and saga orchestration.
• Design AWS infrastructure across EKS, Lambda, ECS/Fargate, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, CloudFront and VPC networking, define IaC standards (Terraform and/or AWS CDK), and lead cloud migration and modernisation from on-premise to AWS.
• Partner with engineering leads, product managers and C-suite to align technical strategy with business objectives, presenting architecture proposals and trade-off analyses to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Embed security from day one (IAM, KMS, WAF, secrets management), design for reliability (multi-AZ, DR, SLAs/SLOs), and drive FinOps practices such as right-sizing and cost optimisation.
• Mentor and upskill senior engineers on architecture patterns and cloud-native practices.

What We're Looking For

• 8+ years in software engineering, including 3+ years in a dedicated architecture role.
• Deep AWS expertise across core compute, storage and networking services.
• Microservices design experience: DDD, API design, service mesh, resilience patterns.
• Hands-on with event-driven patterns - Kafka, SQS/SNS, EventBridge or Kinesis.
• Infrastructure as Code - Terraform and/or AWS CDK.
• Strong container experience - Docker, Kubernetes, EKS, ECS.
• Established CI/CD pipeline and DevOps practice experience.
• Excellent stakeholder communication - comfortable presenting to both engineers and executives.

Nice to Have

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional.
• Service mesh experience (Istio, AWS App Mesh, Linkerd).
• Data architecture: streaming pipelines, data warehousing, data lakes.
• Serverless-first architecture and Lambda-optimised design.
• Multi-cloud or hybrid cloud exposure.
• FinOps tooling (AWS Cost Explorer, Kubecost, CloudHealth).
• Track record mentoring senior engineering talent.
• Familiarity with zero-trust networking and advanced IAM patterns.