Senior Solutions Architect, Aiven

• 5+ years in solutions architecture, pre-sales, solutions engineering or technical consulting for software or cloud infrastructure, with production experience across data technologies such as Kafka, PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, ClickHouse or similar
• Experience with OEM, embedded or ISV partnerships, where your architecture ships inside someone else's product
• A record of running proofs of concept that address real business requirements and convert to production
• Fluency in at least one programming language, such as Java, Python or Go, and comfort in Linux: installation, securing systems, storage + networking basics like DNS
• Working knowledge of at least one public cloud (AWS, Google Cloud or Azure) across compute, storage (block + object), networking + security
• Hands-on experience with streaming frameworks (Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, Spark Streaming or Kinesis) and a strong understanding of search ecosystems (OpenSearch, Elasticsearch or Lucene)
• Daily, hands-on use of AI tools + agents in your technical work, with examples of work you have redesigned or cut as a result
• High agency: a record of owning problems end-to-end across teams without waiting for a blueprint
• Clear communication with engineers, executives + non-technical buyers, written + spoken, in English, and the ability to build trust quickly with both internal sales reps and external partners
• Self Development: In Aiven we’ve a budget to assist continuous learning and the right person will be self motivated to push their boundaries

Desirable

• You are the technical owner of Aiven's strategic OEM partnerships, from the first pre-sales conversation to production at volume and beyond
• OEM partners embed the Aiven platform inside their own products, so their architecture decisions become ours at scale: one design choice gets copied across hundreds of their customers
• You win the technical evaluation, run the proof of concept, design the architecture, and stay on as the person both sides trust to say what should be built, what should be automated + what should be cut
• You work AI-native. Agents handle deployment analysis, usage monitoring, rightsizing, PoC scaffolding + first-draft documentation; your time goes on the judgment calls, the partner's engineers + the hard integration problems. You own how your work gets done and redesign it as the tools improve, without waiting for a playbook
• In this role, that means working with Sales, Technical Account Managers, Product, Engineering + Support on every partner, being the person partners trust to follow through, and moving faster than the partner's other vendors. We know what needs doing; the risk is being slow
• Partner with Sales as the technical lead through the OEM sales cycle: discovery, architecture proposals, objection handling + commercial-technical trade-offs
• Scope + run proofs of concept that answer the partner's real question, using agents to scaffold environments, generate test data + document results so the PoC takes days, not weeks
• Translate complex technical detail into clear business value for non-technical buyers, and the reverse for engineers
• Develop and maintain expert-level knowledge of the Aiven platform: every service, feature and limit
• Understand each OEM partner's customer use cases, then design and evolve robust, scalable, secure architectures that set them up right from day one, for the workloads they run today and the ones they are building next
• Guide partners in building architectures that support their customers' use cases, with best practices and tailored recommendations
• Work with AI to continuously improve existing processes to build efficiency in the work with partners
• Get partners up and running: integrate Aiven into their infrastructure + workflows via APIs, SDKs, Terraform + best practices, and solve the problems that block go-live
• Actively contribute to partner stability, enablement + growth: help partners consume Aiven services well, so utilisation + value grow together
• Work with partners on clear positioning of their Aiven-powered solutions to their customers
• Run technical training + workshops for partner teams, including how to build, operate + support the platform with agents in the loop
• Keep reference architectures + integration guides current, with agents drafting from real deployments and you owning accuracy
• Build trust-based relationships with partner engineering teams, technical decision makers + the Aiven sales reps you work alongside
• Act as the technical liaison between partners and Product, Engineering + Support
• When a partner is blocked, own it end-to-end across teams rather than handing it off
• Close the loop fast: partner feedback becomes Product + Engineering tickets the same week, with evidence attached
• How we measure success:
• Partner growth is our top priority
• Technical win rate on OEM opportunities you lead, and PoC-to-production conversion
• Partner time-to-production for new integrations, falling over time
• Optimisation recommendations delivered + adopted by partners
• Cost or performance issues caught before the partner's customers see them
• Partner feedback turned into shipped product changes
• Ambassador output: blogs, talks + webinars delivered each year
• Reusable assets (agents, reference architectures, playbooks) adopted by the wider SA team
• Share of time on partner-facing work vs. analysis + documentation, trending the right way quarter on quarter