Solution Architect – Cortex Reply
About Cortex Reply
Cortex Reply is a specialist consultancy within the Reply Group, focused on helping organisations adopt and scale AI-enabled, cloud-native solutions — particularly in highly regulated sectors such as financial services and central government. We combine deep technical expertise in cloud architecture and applied AI with a pragmatic understanding of our clients’ business challenges. Our work spans modern infrastructure, FinOps, and AI application development — helping clients turn complex requirements into secure, scalable, and high-impact platforms.
Role Overview
As a Solution Architect at Cortex Reply, you’ll play a key role in shaping robust, future-proof platforms for our clients. You’ll work closely with client architects, engineering teams, and business stakeholders to ensure solutions are aligned with strategic goals and deliver measurable value. You’ll be comfortable engaging in both delivery and pre-sales, bringing an engineering mindset to solution design while contributing to Cortex’s internal IP and go-to-market assets.
We’re looking for individuals who are as comfortable leading client architecture engagements as they are rolling up their sleeves to collaborate on implementation. You’ll bring hands-on experience with AWS, strong familiarity with event-driven architecture, and ideally, exposure to Kafka.
Key Responsibilities
* Lead the design and delivery of high-quality, cloud-native architectures across Cortex projects
* Translate business and non-functional requirements into secure, scalable, and maintainable designs
* Work across the solution stack, with a particular focus on event-driven and decoupled architectures
* Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure architecture is translated into effective implementation
* Support pre-sales engagements, architecture assessments, and RFP responses
* Contribute to the development of Cortex’s reusable patterns, reference architectures, and accelerators
* Stay current with technology trends, particularly in cloud services, automation, and AI enablement
About You
* A 2:1 or higher degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
* Strong hands-on experience designing and implementing solutions on AWS
* Solid understanding of event-driven architecture, messaging patterns, and real-time systems
* Familiarity with Kafka
* Confident working across application, data, and infrastructure domains
* Ability to communicate architectural vision to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
* Experience with architecture frameworks (e.g. TOGAF, SAFe, Zachman) is a plus, but not essential
* Able to work in agile delivery teams and support multiple modes of delivery (e.g. MVPs, PoCs, scaled implementation)
* Comfortable operating in regulated environments and balancing innovation with compliance
Why Join Cortex?
At Cortex, you’ll help shape the future of AI-driven infrastructure and platforms in some of the most complex and high-stakes environments. You’ll work with experienced engineers and architects on genuinely interesting problems — and be part of a growing, high-impact team that values autonomy, curiosity, and clarity of purpose.