Solution Architect

Company Description

Come join us and make a difference in the world! Discover more at www.necsws.com

As a Solution Architect, you will play a pivotal role in bridging customer requirements with technical delivery. Working in partnership with Sales, Product, Professional Services, and Delivery teams, you will provide technical governance, assurance, and architectural leadership to ensure bids, products, and solution designs are robust, scalable, and deployment-ready. You will be accountable for producing high-quality solution designs that meet customer and business objectives, while providing end-to-end technical oversight throughout project delivery. You will ensure solutions are implemented in accordance with architectural standards and best practices, enabling their successful transition into live operational service.

Job activity & responsibilities:

• Provide technical oversight and pre-sales support throughout bid activities.
• Collaborate with Product Management to influence and shape product roadmaps.
• Review and assess new solution proposals, ensuring alignment with architectural standards, best practices and organisational objectives.
• Develop proof-of-concept solutions to validate product capabilities and architectural approaches.
• Provide technical governance and oversight over the project deliveries across your assigned solution portfolio, working proactively with all stakeholders.
• Maintain and continuously improve technical documentation, including work instructions, standards and operational procedures where required.
• Support Project Managers with planning activities, including task definition, effort estimation and resource requirements.
• Assist Project Managers in validating project equipment schedule and infrastructure requirements.
• Conduct site surveys and technical assessments, documenting findings and recommendations within formal reports.
• Produce high-quality solution designs.
• Present solution designs, technical recommendations and architectural decisions to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Manage design updates and ensure all solution changes are appropriately controlled through the project change process.
• Prepare for and facilitate gated process reviews, ensuring technical readiness and compliance.
• Review implementation workplans, ensuring technical suitability and compliance with the change management processes.
• Triage project delivery issues raised (Using Azure DevOps work items process).
• Provide technical support to engineering teams during implementation.
• Create a migration plan for customer solution cutover into live operations.
• Build and maintain effective customer relationships, demonstrating professionalism and adaptability when communicating with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Operate with a high degree of autonomy, demonstrating excellent organisational, prioritisation and time-management skills.
• Adhere to NEC Software Solutions policies, processes and governance frameworks at all times.
• Deliver activities within agreed timescales, proactively communicating risks, issues and dependencies that may impact delivery.
• Maintain a professional approach and represent NEC Software Solutions positively in all customer and stakeholder interactions.
• Promote a safe, clean and compliant working environment, adhering to all applicable Health & Safety policies, procedures and regulations.

Qualifications

Essential experience, skills and knowledge:

• Proven experience in a Solution Architect, Technical Architect, or senior technical consultancy role within enterprise or mission-critical environments.
• Demonstrable experience capturing customer requirements and producing high-quality solution designs that balance technical, operational, security, and commercial considerations.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure, networking, virtualisation, cloud technologies, authentication, authorisation, and system integration principles.
• Experience identifying and documenting non-functional requirements, technical constraints, assumptions, risks, dependencies, and technical debt considerations.
• Ability to provide technical governance across multidisciplinary teams, ensuring solutions remain aligned to architectural standards and delivery capabilities.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to customers, project managers, engineers, product teams, and senior leadership.
• Experience in supporting bids, product roadmap development, proof-of-concepts, solution evaluations, and technical assurance activities.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, with a focus on delivering practical and supportable solutions.
• Ability to work independently while effectively collaborating across product, delivery, professional services, sales, and support functions.
• Ability to assess, learn and evaluate new technologies, considering their suitability, supportability and impact within customer solution environments.
• Experience using Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, Visio and related collaboration tools.

Desirable experience, skills and knowledge:

• Experience designing and supporting solutions within Public Safety, blue-light, government, defence, or other highly regulated sectors built upon modern platform technologies, including Linux, Docker containers, infrastructure automation (AWX/Ansible), virtualisation, and cloud-native deployment principles.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure (solution design, deployment or security), Windows Server, databases, automation, and modern deployment practices.
• Proven experience administering and working with Microsoft Windows client & server architecture (windows 10 /11, up to Server 2025), primarily using DELL hardware or similar.
• A good understanding of Microsoft active directory / domain architecture.
• A good understanding and experience of using Microsoft Hyper-V.
• Knowledge of solution assurance, delivery governance and project lifecycle processes, including the ability to identify risks, dependencies and readiness gaps before customer deployment.
• Knowledge of architecture frameworks such as TOGAF and the ability to apply structured design methodologies in a pragmatic manner.
• Relevant professional certifications (e.g. TOGAF, Azure, ITIL, CISSP, or equivalent).
• Scripting experience / Knowledge (Batch, MYSQL, PowerShell).
• Hyper-V Failover Clustering experience / Knowledge.
• An understanding of the SIP protocol.
• Telephony experience / Knowledge (Cisco UCCE/Avaya Blue/Avaya Red/Mitel/Asterisk).
• Knowledge of MySQL/MSSQL (User Admin, Creation of jobs including backups, writing / understanding queries).

Additional Information

We pride ourselves in offering an excellent benefits package. When you join the team at NEC Software Solutions, you are provided with the following:

• 25 days paid holiday with the option to buy/sell (FTE)
• 4 x basic salary life assurance cover (with the option to increase cover at an additional cost)
• A Group Pension Plan
• A selection of flexible benefits to suit your individual needs

OTHER INFORMATION

Candidates must be able to demonstrate a pre-existing right to work and travel within the UK. Documentary evidence will be required. All offers are subject to satisfactory vetting, references and occupational health checks. Depending on the nature of the role a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check may also be required.

NEC Software Solutions is an equal opportunities employer, welcoming applications from all communities. If you require any reasonable adjustments or have specific accessibility needs during the recruitment or interview process, please feel free to share these with us. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accommodating experience for all candidates.

Who We Are:

We’re NEC Software Solutions (part of global tech giant NEC Corporation). While you read this ad, our software is helping to dispatch ambulances, support families, keep trains on the move, locate missing people and even test the hearing of newborn babies. Working with us, you’ll be helping our 3,000+ employees push the boundaries of what’s possible and support amazing public services. We work with governments, hospitals, police forces, housing providers, local authorities and more. We help them pay financial support faster, speed up treatments for patients and respond to emergencies in the right way. The more we do, the more our customers can do for others. And together, we make a world of difference. We’d love your help. And we’ll support you all the way.