Senior Solutions Architect, Amazon

• Practical knowledge of the AWS platform is desired but not required, provided you have a sound technical foundation and a desire to learn
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics or equivalent, or experience in a professional field or military
• Experience in IT development or implementation/consulting in the software or Internet industries
• Experience within specific technology domain areas (e.g. software development, cloud computing, systems engineering, infrastructure, security, networking, data & analytics)
• Experience in design, implementation, or consulting in applications and infrastructures
• Experience communicating across technical and non-technical audiences, including executive level stakeholders or clients

Desirable

• AWS is looking to hire a Senior Solutions Architect, based in Manchester or London, focused on Retail and Consumer Goods customers across the United Kingdom and Ireland (UK&I)
• Our customer base spans a rich set of sub-segments: Fashion & Apparel, General Merchandise, Grocery, and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
• These range from established enterprises to fast-moving digital natives, including some of the largest and most innovative organisations in UKI and largest brands globally
• Senior Solutions Architects work hand in hand with AWS customers to help them make the most of the cloud
• You'll sit at the crossroads of business and technology, engaging with organisations at all stages of cloud adoption
• In the Retail and Consumer Goods industry, businesses are transforming well beyond simply selling products – through new channels, advanced stores and enhanced customer touchpoints, value-chain optimisation through demand forecasting and logistics, digital marketing, and customer-service advancement - using the full suite of cloud, data and AI services available through AWS and our extensive partner ecosystem
• In particular, this role sits at the spearhead of Agentic Commerce - the emerging shift where AI agents discover, recommend, negotiate and complete purchases on behalf of shoppers and businesses, reshaping how Retail and CPG customers sell, serve and grow
• You'll work alongside customers as a trusted advisor to envision new possibilities and turn them into real business value
• As a Senior Solutions Architect, you will blend deep technical expertise with strong business acumen to engage Retail and CPG organisations at all levels, up to and including the C-suite
• You will be a pivotal member — often the technical anchor — of a Customer Account Team that brings together Account Managers, Customer Solutions Managers, Technical Account Managers and specialists across many technical domains, and you will own the overall technical relationship between your customers and AWS
• You will lead activities such as architecture reviews, collaborative design sessions (sometimes called white-boarding), demos and technical workshops, and make recommendations across security, cost, performance, reliability and operational efficiency
• Internally, you'll be the voice of the customer, informing the AWS roadmap and collaborating with teams across account management, professional services, support, product teams and the AWS partner ecosystem
• In this role you'll get to practise your creativity, linking technology to tangible solutions and helping customers understand what is genuinely achievable with the cloud
• You will define and invent cloud-native reference architectures across a range of use cases - including Generative and Agentic AI (and its application to Agentic Commerce), Machine Learning, Serverless and container-based architectures, Data and Analytics, DevOps and Security - and turn delivered solutions into reusable assets that other Solutions Architects can leverage with their customers
• You will have the support to grow your expertise in the industry and technology areas of depth that matter most to your customers - and you'll bring your industry experience to bear in an environment that is comfortable with complexity, ambiguity and a broad set of technologies and use cases
• Work as a pivotal member of a Customer Account Team - alongside Account Managers, Customer Solutions Managers, Technical Account Managers and domain specialists — to accelerate your customers' challenging, high-impact projects and recommend best-practice architectures in line with their long-term business outcomes
• Build and own technical relationships with your customers' senior leaders, operating as their trusted advisor - the best interests of the customer will shape the guidance you provide
• Proactively identify new technical opportunities that positively impact your customers' business objectives, and define long-term milestones for their existing and new business success
• Help shape and lead the conversation on Agentic Commerce for Retail and CPG customers - guiding how AI agents discover, recommend and transact, and turning early thinking into reference architectures and proof points others can reuse
• Design customer solutions, applying judgement and experience to advise on the short- and long-term implications of trade-offs (for example extensibility, flexibility, scalability and maintainability)
• Share the voice of the customer to inform the roadmap of AWS features, and contribute to platform improvements with service teams based on customer feedback
• Lead the creation and sharing of best practices, technical content and new reference architectures (for example white papers, code samples and blog posts), transforming solutions into reusable artifacts for the wider community
• Champion and educate customers about AWS technology (for example through workshops, user groups, meetups, public speaking, online videos or conferences)
• Contribute to the growth of the Solutions Architecture organisation by interviewing candidates and having a voice in hiring decisions, and help others develop new skills through mentoring and knowledge sharing
• Act as a thought leader, working with regional and global technical teams and communities to capture and share industry solutions across geographies
• Develop areas of depth in the technical domains most relevant to your customers' outcomes and your own interests
• No two weeks look the same
• You might open the week by aligning your Customer Account Team - setting technical direction with the Account Manager, Customer Solutions Manager and Technical Account Manager, and pulling in domain specialists where a customer needs deep expertise
• From there you might be advising a customer's senior leadership on their cloud strategy one day, leading a hands-on workshop the next, shaping an Agentic Commerce reference architecture with AWS and partner solutions later in the week, and mentoring colleagues or speaking at an event by Friday
• The work style is flexible, blending on-site collaborative design with online collaboration
• It's a dynamic environment with countless networks to build, and plenty of opportunity to both receive and offer expertise across a wider technical community - all in the name of customer obsession and industry impact
• You won't work alone. You'll be part of multi-disciplinary Customer Account Teams that wraps around each customer. You'll get to know:
• Account Managers - own the overall business relationship and commercial strategy for the customer
• Customer Solutions Managers - orchestrate delivery and keep complex programmes on track across the customer's cloud journey
• Technical Account Managers - provide ongoing operational guidance and advocacy for customers who want a deeper support relationship
• Specialists across many technical domains - bring deep expertise in areas such as AI/ML, data & analytics, security, networking and more, on tap when you need them
• As the Solutions Architect, you connect the technical dots across this team - and you'll always have its expertise and support behind you