Principal Solution Architect
Manchester – Hybrid (2 Days Per Week)
Occasional Birmingham Travel
Up to £100,000 Base + £6,300 Car Allowance + 20% Bonus
The Opportunity
This is a rare opportunity to join our client - a major enterprise SaaS organisation at a pivotal stage of modernisation and growth.
The business operates a suite of highly scaled digital platforms used across multiple international markets, supporting millions of transactions, complex integrations, and mission-critical customer journeys every single day. Their technology estate is extensive, their ambitions are significant, and architecture sits at the centre of that transformation.
As Solution Architect, you will play a key role in shaping the future technical direction of several enterprise-grade platforms, working closely with engineering, product, and senior technology leadership to define scalable, modern, cloud-native solutions capable of supporting long-term commercial growth.
This is not a governance-only architecture role.
The environment demands somebody capable of operating strategically while remaining technically credible and close to engineering teams. The successful person will influence architecture decisions across distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, integrations, APIs, and modern software delivery practices while helping teams solve genuinely complex technical problems at scale.
The organisation is investing heavily in platform evolution, engineering maturity, customer experience, and operational scalability. Architecture is viewed internally as a business-critical capability rather than a support function.
Why This Role Stands Out
You will be joining a business where architecture has genuine visibility and influence.
The engineering landscape includes modern cloud-native platforms, high-volume transactional systems, large-scale integrations, distributed services, and evolving product ecosystems across multiple business domains.
You will work directly with senior technology leaders and high-performing engineering teams to:
• Define enterprise architecture strategies aligned to long-term business goals
• Shape cloud-native application and platform design
• Drive modern engineering standards and architectural governance
• Influence API, integration, and event-driven architecture strategies
• Support scalability, resilience, performance, and security initiatives
• Guide engineering teams through architectural challenges and modernisation efforts
• Partner closely with product and delivery functions to align technical direction with commercial priorities
• Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities for innovation and optimisation
• Contribute to technical roadmaps spanning multiple product platforms and customer journeys
This role offers the opportunity to influence systems that operate at genuine enterprise scale while still remaining close enough to delivery teams to see architectural decisions translate into real-world impact.
Technology Environment
The broader technology landscape includes:
• .NET / C#
• AWS cloud infrastructure
• Microservices and distributed systems
• API-first architecture
• Event-driven systems
• Kubernetes and containerisation
• CI/CD and modern DevOps practices
• Enterprise integration platforms
• High-availability SaaS environments
What They Are Looking For
The business is looking for a technically credible architect who combines strategic thinking with practical engineering understanding.
You will likely come from a strong software engineering or technical leadership background before moving into architecture and will feel comfortable operating in complex enterprise SaaS environments.
The ideal profile will demonstrate:
• Strong experience designing scalable enterprise SaaS solutions
• Excellent understanding of cloud-native architecture principles
• Experience working within modern distributed systems environments
• Ability to influence engineering teams and senior stakeholders alike
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement capability
• Commercial awareness and understanding of how architecture impacts business outcomes
• Passion for modern engineering practices and continuous improvement
• Ability to balance strategic direction with pragmatic delivery
The Environment
The culture is collaborative, ambitious, and engineering-led.
This is an organisation undergoing significant technology evolution, with strong investment into modern architecture, platform capability, and engineering excellence. The scale of systems, complexity of integrations, and commercial importance of the platforms create genuinely interesting technical challenges.
The role operates on a hybrid basis from Manchester, typically two days per week onsite, alongside occasional monthly travel to Birmingham for leadership and collaboration sessions.
Package
• Up to £100,000 base salary
• Bonus scheme
• £6,300 car allowance
• Hybrid working
• Large-scale enterprise SaaS environment
• Significant architectural ownership and influence
• Long-term progression opportunities within a growing technology organisation