Senior Lead Solution Architect

The Role

Lumen Validated Designs accelerate time-to-value, reduce deployment cost, and simplify technology adoption with production-tested architectures, built on the Lumen Network. They reinforce Lumen's leadership as a trusted partner in #digitaltransformation, #cloud, #security, and the #AI economy.  We are building a team of highly skilled, talented, and customer-focused professionals to work with Lumen Product, Technology, Partner, and Sales teams, and our ecosystem partners, to create Lumen Validated Designs and solutions that address customer needs and industry use cases. 

The Senior Lead Solution Architect will be a key member of the Lumen Validated Designs team and will work closely with x-functional team members in Lumen Product, Technology, Connected Ecosystem, and Sales to manage the technical aspects of Validated Design projects from concept to launch. This position requires skilled leadership and technical competency to plan, manage and deliver all aspects of the design, architecture, validation (in the lab and with customers), and documentation of solutions as part of an LVD, crossing multiple disciplines.  

 
The Senior Lead Solution Architect role will collaborate across Lumen and with our partners, leading innovative conversations that help shape the growth of our business. The successful Senior Lead Solution Architect must have a strong desire to leverage their technical and communication skills, including business acumen and industry knowledge, to understand business requirements, develop a technical architecture, and effectively present solutions that address our business partner’s requirements and provide business value. 

Location

This is a remote opportunity open to candidates located anywhere in the U.S.

The Main Responsibilities

• The Senior Lead Solution Architect will be responsible for analyzing customer needs and requirements through strategic discovery, utilizing technical thought leadership, discussing industry best practices, and then delivering a technical solution that meets or exceeds the business need – including non-functional specifications, enablers, 3rd party requirements, and delivers the documented business value. 
• Business Meetings: Leads and attends business meetings in person and via collaboration tools. Prepares and delivers technical proposals and presentations with the appropriate level of business acumen for the audience. Provides detailed, specific responses to solution and technology questions. Demonstrates strong solution ‘selling abilities’ and effective, proactive business communications. Interacts with all levels of IT and Business teams.
• Solution Development: Analyze and identify business partner’s and customer’s business and technology objectives, conduct full technical discovery, and architect business solutions to meet gathered requirements. Assess business and operations impacted by technology. Craft and propose solutions that meet the business’s requirements and objectives by asking probing questions that are meaningful to the business to collect information that enables the architecture team to be more effective and responsive to clients’ needs. Ability to complete complex custom designs.
• Customer Advocate: Acts as a client advocate, participating in efforts including technical presentations, architecture design discussions, proof-of-concept engagements, RFP/RFI responses, solution demonstrations, and technical workshops. Deliver findings including key pain points, proposed solutions to meet business needs, and ROI where applicable. Design, architect and demonstrate visionary solutions in a way that closely reflects our client's technology roadmap.
• Proven ability to collaborate with diverse roles and teams to achieve clarity in solution design. Collaborating with directors, product managers, solution architects, partner alliance managers, and other leads within the LVD team and across groups, and with ecosystem partners.
• Consistently apply and improve the LVD Framework, including:  
  • Design and build reference architectures and blueprints. 
  • Document integration points with Lumen platforms (network, edge, cloud, security, media & entertainment, AI) and partner technologies. 
  • Define design considerations (scale, resilience, compliance, performance). 
  • Capture technical dependencies and assumptions. 
  • Develop detailed adoption guides (step-by-step deployment, configuration, and policy workflows). 
  • Run technical validation in the lab and at customer deployments. 
  • Document and provide technical enablement assets for field and partners. 
  • Refine architecture and adoption guides and feed learnings back into the next iteration of the LVD. 
  • Adapt LVD to new use cases, products, and integrations. 

What We Look For in a Candidate

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, MIS, or equivalent education and experience. 
• 10+ years of relevant experience with a bachelor’s degree, or 8+ years with a master’s degree. 
• Experience in developing IT solutions including Telecommunications B/OSS system architecture, operations, infrastructure/database architecture, and/or applications development. 
• Experience with one or more of the following telecommunications or technology platforms: network, edge, contact center, voice, security, media & entertainment, AI 
• Ability to lead & engage in technical workshops, and solution discussions with Business and IT Stakeholders. Strong listening, reasoning, and objection handling skills. 
• Experience with technical validation and testing methodologies and practice in the lab and at customer deployments. 
• Experience working with diverse stakeholders and teams in a dynamic environment, with a high degree of drive and independence. 
• Experience utilizing UML modeling, use cases, or other methods to communicate architectural concepts clearly to diverse groups. Excellent written and verbal communication. 
• Hands-on development experience in a DevOps environment. 
• SAFE or other Agile methodology experience desired. 
• Sense of Urgency – prioritize and communicate; move quickly without fear, and have a plan to fix mistakes quickly. Ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines and on multiple projects simultaneously.   
• Must be very detail-oriented with ability to demonstrate a high degree of accuracy.  Ability to prioritize with good time management skills and organizational capabilities. 
• Ability to work independently, or as part of a team, assuming accountability to build complex customer solutions. 
• Experience with validated designs, solutions, ecosystem partners, and industry use cases are an asset. 

Compensation