Lead Technical Solutions Architect (Remote)

inspiracareers; Oak Brook (IL); Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

inspiracareers is seeking a Lead Solution Architect in Oak Brook, IL to shape architecture strategy across multiple product teams. You will translate business goals into practical technology roadmaps and provide cross-portfolio leadership to ensure scalable, secure solutions.

The role requires 12+ years in architecture roles, deep understanding of cloud-native design, APIs, and governance. You will mentor architects, drive architectural excellence, and collaborate with senior leadership across

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in CS/IT/Engineering.
• 12+ years in software engineering or architecture leadership roles.
• Proven success leading architecture across large-scale, cross-functional initiatives.
• Deep understanding of APIs, event-driven architectures, distributed systems, and cloud-native design.
• Experience establishing governance, standards, reference architectures, and reusable patterns.
• Experience designing solutions on modern cloud platforms, preferably Azure.
• Strong focus on security, resiliency, observability, and operational readiness.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve architecture roadmaps and target-state architectures.
• Translate business strategy into practical technology strategies and roadmaps.
• Provide architectural leadership across multiple initiatives and teams.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends for opportunities and risks.
• Lead governance activities and promote consistency, reuse, and security across the landscape.
• Mentor architects and engineering teams; foster technical excellence and knowledge sharing.
• Partner with stakeholders to align investments with business priorities.

Skills

Architectural leadership

Communication

Stakeholder management

Cloud platforms - Azure

Security best practices

Disaster recovery planning

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or related field

Tools

Azure

Job description

The Lead Solution Architect serves as a senior technical leader responsible for shaping architecture strategy, guiding cross-portfolio technology decisions, and ensuring alignment between business objectives and technology investments. This role provides architectural leadership across multiple product teams, programs, and business capabilities while establishing standards, reusable patterns, and long-term roadmaps that enable scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions.

The Lead Solution Architect operates as a trusted advisor to business and technology leaders, influences enterprise technology direction, mentors architects and technical leaders, and helps drive architecture consistency, governance, and engineering excellence across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture Strategy & Leadership

• Define and evolve architecture roadmaps, target-state architectures, and strategic technology direction for one or more business domains.
• Translate business strategy into practical technology strategies, architectural capabilities, and implementation roadmaps.
• Provide architectural leadership across multiple concurrent initiatives, ensuring solutions align with enterprise objectives and architectural principles.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, industry trends, and vendor capabilities to identify opportunities and risks.

Enterprise & Portfolio Architecture

• Guide architecture decisions that span products, platforms, integrations, data domains, and shared services.
• Resolve architectural conflicts, competing priorities, and cross-team design tradeoffs.
• Ensure solutions support long-term business goals while balancing cost, risk, complexity, and delivery objectives.
• Lead architectural planning for modernization, platform evolution, technical debt reduction, and operational resiliency.

Governance & Standards

• Establish and maintain architecture standards, reference architectures, design patterns, and decision frameworks.
• Lead architecture reviews and governance activities for strategic initiatives and high-impact technology decisions.
• Promote consistency, reusability, supportability, and security across the technology landscape.
• Drive use of architecture decision records (ADRs), standards, and documentation practices.

Risk Management & Operational Excellence

• Identify and proactively address architectural risks, dependencies, constraints, and systemic weaknesses.
• Ensure solutions appropriately address security, compliance, privacy, resiliency, recoverability, scalability, and operational support requirements.
• Partner with security, infrastructure, operations, and engineering teams to ensure alignment with enterprise controls and operational standards.
• Contribute to disaster recovery, business continuity, and platform resiliency planning.

Organizational Leadership

• Mentor Solution Architects, technical leads, and engineering teams on architecture practices and decision-making.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing.
• Lead architecture communities of practice and contribute to architecture capability development across the organization.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior technology and business leaders.

Business & Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with product, engineering, security, infrastructure, data, and business stakeholders to align technology investments with business priorities.
• Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Influence strategic decisions through analysis of benefits, risks, constraints, and tradeoffs.
• Support portfolio planning, investment decisions, and long-range technology strategy discussions.

Additional Interview Requirements:

As part of the evaluation process, candidates who progress beyond the initial screening will be required to complete a formal technical assessment to validate coding proficiency and technical competency.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience
• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, enterprise architecture, or related technical leadership roles
• Demonstrated success leading architecture across large-scale, cross-functional initiatives involving multiple systems, teams, and business domains
• Deep understanding of application architecture, integration patterns, APIs, event-driven architectures, distributed systems, data architecture concepts, and cloud-native design principles
• Experience establishing architecture governance processes, standards, reference architectures, and reusable patterns
• Experience designing and governing solutions on modern cloud platforms, preferably Microsoft Azure
• Strong understanding of security, compliance, resiliency, observability, and operational readiness practices
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, stakeholder management, and influence skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services or another highly regulated industry
• Experience influencing enterprise technology strategy and multi-year roadmaps
• Experience mentoring architects and leading architecture communities of practice
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks, architecture repositories, and capability-based planning approaches
• Relevant cloud, architecture, security, or integration certifications