Senior Architect - Solution Ownership (Chicago)

Slalom, LLC; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 163,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match

Health coverage

Paid holidays

Well-being reimbursement

Disability insurance

Job summary

Slalom is seeking a Senior Architect - Solution Owner to drive AI-enabled delivery from strategy through software to measurable business impact in Chicago. You will lead cross-functional teams, partner with senior client stakeholders, and set the delivery standard by focusing on outcomes over outputs.

You will coach teams in Agile, oversee OKRs and KPIs, and shape roadmaps, governance, and AI tooling adoption across programs.

Qualifications

• Experience leading large or multi-workstream programs with accountability for outcomes.
• Deep knowledge of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, XP, Lean) and adaptability to AI-enabled workflows.
• Strong executive communication skills with diverse client stakeholders.
• Ability to navigate complex client organizations and build trusted relationships.
• Risk identification, escalation, and mitigation across delivery and organizational change.
• Proficiency with AI tools across the delivery lifecycle for documentation, research, and backlog management.
• Technical fluency to engage credibly with engineering teams and evaluate toolchains.
• Experience establishing and tracking outcome-based metrics (OKRs, KPIs) and coaching clients to measure business impact.

Responsibilities

• Taking full responsibility for solution and project success measured by OKRs and KPIs.
• Validating product direction before engineering by testing strategy with clients and engineers.
• Owning and evolving the project's living context hub with AI tooling.
• Defining and managing governance at program scale including cadence and delivery reporting.
• Partnering with engineering leadership to validate technical approach and milestones.
• Designing and deploying prompts, agents, templates, and AI workflows across delivery lifecycle.
• Coaching client and delivery teams to adopt outcome-driven ways of working.
• Facilitating client conversations about AI tooling and value realization.

Skills

Outcome ownership

Agile leadership

Executive communication

Stakeholder management

AI tooling familiarity

Risk management

Technical fluency

OKRs KPIs

Tools

Git

IDEs

Version control

Delivery tools

Job description

Description and Requirements

Job Description

Senior Architect - Solution Owner

AI-native product and delivery leader who owns the throughline from strategy to software delivery to measurable business impact.

Who You'll Work With

Slalom's Solution Owners are hands-on technology, AI, and Agile delivery experts dedicated to their projects and clients. Our job is to make sure our clients build the right thing at the right time - and then build it right. AI tools, agents, and workflows are embedded into our delivery practices - accelerating discovery, documentation, analysis, backlog management, and team alignment. We are passionate, adaptive experts who continually practice and hone our craft.

What You'll Do

As a Senior Architect-level Solution Owner, you own solution and project outcomes across large or multi-workstream programs. You partner directly with senior client stakeholders to translate strategic priorities into delivery roadmaps and lead cross-capability engineering teams to ship products that move the client's metrics. You work alongside product, engineering, delivery, and engagement leaders, connecting their perspectives into one path from business intent to working software. You set the delivery standard for your team, shaping strategy rather than just managing execution, so every decision traces back to a measurable outcome.

Core responsibilities include

• Taking full responsibility for solution and project success measured in OKRs and KPIs.
• Validating product direction before it becomes engineering work - pressure-testing strategy, reframing client conversations from solutions to outcomes, proving ideas through lightweight prototypes with clients and engineers, and turning validated ideas into clear specifications, backlogs, acceptance criteria, and success metrics.
• Owning and evolving the project's living context hub - the shared source of truth for strategy, decisions, requirements, and risks, continuously maintained with AI tooling.
• Defining and managing project governance at program scale - cadence, Agile ceremonies, escalation paths, and delivery reporting that surfaces the data clients need to make decisions.
• Partnering with engineering leadership, including Solution Architects, to validate technical approach, delivery strategy, and key milestones.
• Designing and deploying effective prompts, agents, templates, and repeatable AI workflows across the delivery lifecycle - and evaluating emerging tools to determine what the team adopts next.
• Coaching client and delivery teams to adopt outcome-driven ways of working, build confidence in modern delivery practices, and own and evolve solutions sustainably after engagement close.
• Facilitating client conversations about AI tooling, delivery approach, and value realization - bringing the data to support investment decisions and communicating tradeoffs to senior stakeholders.
• Leading teams through change - creating psychological safety for experimentation and clarifying where accountability sits between people and AI-assisted workflows.

Travel may be required depending on client needs.

What You'll Bring

You are a curious problem solver and bring extensive product delivery experience, including programs with multiple concurrent workstreams, with a track record of owning outcomes - not just outputs - end-to-end as a Product, Project, or Program Manager using Agile methodologies.

You demonstrate

• Proven ability to lead large or multi-workstream programs, managing competing priorities and making strategic trade-offs to optimize outcomes against defined business metrics.
• Deep knowledge of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, XP, Lean) with the ability to adapt delivery frameworks to team, project, and AI-enabled workflow needs.
• Strong executive communication skills - commanding conversations, driving decisions, and tailoring messaging to diverse client stakeholders with a focus on value and business impact.
• Ability to navigate complex client organizations, including informal structures, cultural dynamics, and competing stakeholder needs; building authentic, trusting relationships at multiple levels.
• Strong risk identification, escalation, and mitigation skills - independently managing ambiguity with minimal oversight across delivery and organizational change.
• Proficiency with AI tools across the delivery lifecycle - generative AI for documentation, research, reporting, and backlog management - paired with an AI-first mindset that cultivates experimentation and helps clients understand what's possible.
• Confidence working directly with repositories, IDEs, version control, and delivery integrations; enough technical fluency to engage credibly with engineering teams and evaluate the toolchain.
• Experience establishing and tracking outcome-based metrics (OKRs, KPIs, adoption, ROI) and coaching clients to measure success by business impact, not delivery milestones.

Nice to have

• Deep knowledge of a specific industry or client domain that adds strategic value to delivery.
• Business development / consulting sales experience.

About Us

Slalom is a fiercely human business and technology consulting company that leads with outcomes to bring more value, in all ways, always. From strategy through delivery, our agile teams across 52 offices in 12 countries partner with clients to co-create powerful customer experiences, modern ways of working, and meaningful impact.

What sets us apart?

We believe work should be challenging and fulfilling, not perfect, but possible. That's why we prioritize purpose, flexibility, connection, and recognition, so our people can thrive and love what they do, most days.

Compensation and Benefits

Slalom prides itself on helping team members thrive in their work and life. As a result, Slalom is proud to invest in benefits that include meaningful time off and paid holidays, parental leave, 401(k) with a match, a range of choices for highly subsidized health, dental, & vision coverage, adoption and fertility assistance, and short/long-term disability. We also offer yearly $350 reimbursement account for any well-being-related expenses, as well as discounted home, auto, and pet insurance. Slalom is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.

The targeted base salary pay range for Senior Architect is $163,000 to $200,000. In addition, individuals may be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. Actual compensation will depend upon an individual's skills, experience, qualifications, location, and other relevant factors. The salary pay range is subject to change and may be modified at any time.

If you have questions or concerns about the pay range or other compensation information in this posting, please contact us: [e-mail]. Please note, this recipient is not able to support recruitment inquiries beyond this purpose.

EEO and Accommodations

Slalom is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to attracting, developing and retaining highly qualified talent who empower our innovative teams through unique perspectives and experiences. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran’s status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Slalom will also consider qualified applications with criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. Slalom welcomes and encourages applications from individuals with disabilities. Reasonable accommodations are available for candidates during all aspects of these selection processes. Please advise the talent acquisition team or contact [e-mail] if you require accommodations during the interview process.