Solutions Architect

Who We Are

Artisan Studios, a leading digital innovation consultancy, crafts elegant digital solutions that accelerate success for our clients. We are a team of talented, compassionate, and inclusive professionals who share a passion for technology and an unwavering drive to grow. Our work spans from application and infrastructure modernization to cloud migration, AI engineering, and custom end-to-end product development.

We're looking for a Solutions Architect to join our team of Artisans!

About the Role

This is a hands-on individual contributor role in our solutions architecture practice, reporting to the Principal Solutions Architect. You work across two to five client opportunities at a time, from the first discovery call through the signed Statement of Work and the handoff to delivery.

Architecture is the core skill: knowing the major architectural styles, when each fits, what each costs, and where each fails. We are looking for someone that has experience in all phases of the SLDC, and can tell the stories of what went right, and what went wrong.

Most of our work is applied AI on AWS, so a strong understanding of the full AI/LLM ecosystem, how to integrate it into workflows as part of a comprehensive architecture.

Key responsibilities

• Design solution architectures for client engagements: choose the architectural style, name the trade-offs, and write the decision records.
• Review proposed designs for where they will fail under load, cost, security, or change, and say so before the deal is signed.
• Lead the technical side of presales: discovery, scoping, estimates, statements of work, and client workshops.
• Build proof-of-concept slices on AWS and run research spikes when a design or a client question needs a measured answer before signature.
• Prepare reference architectures and technical content for AWS Partner and AWS Professional Services sessions.
• Hand off to delivery with the design, the decision records, and the open questions written down.
• Explain and defend technical recommendations to client executives, client engineers, and AWS.

About the Candidate

You are a fluent in software engineering topics and have professional experience designing software architectures that would pass the AWS Well Architected Review. You have shipped production software through the full software development lifecycle and lived with what your design decisions cost.

You can explain why an event-driven system fits one problem and a modular monolith fits another, and you can describe a case where you chose wrong.

You work well in consulting: you can confidently hold a high level technical position with a client CTO and then talk details with his tech leadership and ICs.

You use AI tools in your own work, you know where their output fails, and you own every line and every claim that comes out of them.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• Professional software engineering experience at a company, through the full software development lifecycle (requirements, design, build, test, release, and operation), including designing systems that other engineers built.
• Working knowledge of the major architectural styles (monolith and modular monolith, microservices, event-driven, serverless, data lakehouse, and agentic AI systems): when to use each, what each costs, and the failure modes to watch for.
• Hands-on experience building and operating cloud-native systems on AWS, in both architecture and code: compute, storage and data, identity, networking, and cost.
• Experience in consulting or professional services: solution architecture, estimates, statements of work, and client-facing technical conversations.
• Proficiency in Python or TypeScript. Confident writing SQL.
• Daily use of AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, or similar), with the judgment to verify and own their output.
• Clear written and verbal communication with executives, clients, and engineers.

Extra Credit

• Experience in the AWS partner ecosystem: Professional Services co-delivery, partner programs, or funded proof-of-concept work.
• Agentic patterns in production: MCP servers, tool-calling agents, multi-agent orchestration, or agent memory.
• Lakehouse experience: Iceberg, Glue, Athena, or the equivalent on another cloud.
• Public writing or talks about something you built.
• AWS Professional certification.

Core Competencies

• Decision Quality - Chooses an architecture on its merits and names the trade-offs
• Drives Results - Delivers scoped, estimated, and proven designs on the sales timeline
• Manages Ambiguity - Operates well when the client's problem is only half defined
• Customer Focus - Builds strong client relationships and delivers client-centric solutions
• Communicates Effectively - Explains technical decisions to executives and engineers alike

More about our team

We're a creative company with a deep and equal passion for strategy, technology and design. Our work is diverse, and so is our team. We're committed to building a culture where differences are embraced. Our team is fantastic, but we've got room for you if you're interested.

More about our benefits

Our clients appreciate that we always bring our "A" game. But to do that consistently requires life balance, and we get that. Flexible working hours and remote work environments give our staff the freedom to enjoy both their life and their career. Artisan offers a robust benefits package including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability insurance, 401k matching, and more.

Additional information

We believe our differences make us stronger. To ensure our culture continues to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we celebrate and encourage diversity. Artisan is an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, medical condition, disability, veteran status, marital status or other prohibited factors under applicable federal, state, and local laws.

As a remote-first, digitally innovative technology consulting firm, we pride ourselves on our ability to meet the needs of our clients. As such, you may be required to travel quarterly, depending on the specific client responsibilities of your role. This position requires constant operation of a computer, various software programs and other electronic productivity tools. This position requires prolonged observation of a computer screen. Additionally, it requires regular participation in virtual meetings and training. Artisan participates in e-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all new hires as part of our commitment to a compliant and secure workplace.