Solution Architect

Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States

Department: Engineering

Codal is looking for a Solution Architect who can look at a client's technology landscape, understand what's working, what isn't, and chart a credible path forward. You'll design and defend end-to-end solutions across software, systems, data, AI, and DevOps, translating ambiguous business goals into architectures that are practical to build and easy to evolve.

This is a hands-on and client-facing role. You'll move between whiteboard sessions with client executives, deep technical design work, and hands-on prototyping to prove out an approach before committing a team to it. You're comfortable weighing cost, timeline, risk, and maintainability against each other, then making a recommendation and standing behind it.

We expect this role to embody Codal’s principles of mindful excellence, insatiable expertise, diverse intuition, data-led curiosity, and candid leadership in how you lead technically, mentor your team, and engage with clients.

***Please note this role is open to Chicagoland residents and is not eligible for Visa sponsorship. 

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Who You'll Be Working With

You'll work alongside client stakeholders, from engineering leads to executive sponsors, as well as Codal's project managers, designers, and delivery teams. You'll be involved from early discovery and pre-sales conversations through hands-on implementation and post-launch support.

Responsibilities

• Assess a client's existing technology landscape (software, systems, data, and infrastructure) and rationalize the pros, cons, and risks of what's in place versus what's proposed.
• Design end-to-end solution architectures spanning application, data, AI/ML, and DevOps concerns, and document them clearly enough for both engineers and executives to act on.
• Present and defend architecture recommendations to client stakeholders, including technical leads and executive sponsors, with support from Codal's delivery and account teams.
• Support discovery, technical planning, and pre-sales conversations, translating client goals and constraints into a scoped, deliverable technical approach.
• Create and maintain architecture decision records that capture the trade-offs considered and the reasoning behind each major decision.
• Guide engineering teams through implementation, staying hands-on where needed (prototyping, code review, unblocking hard technical problems) without holding up delivery.
• Evaluate emerging tools, platforms, and AI capabilities, and bring forward recommendations that would meaningfully improve a client's solution or delivery speed.
• Partner with DevOps, data, and engineering leads to align architecture with CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and data platform realities on the ground.
• Mentor engineers and technical leads on architectural thinking, not just implementation, helping the broader team reason about systems, not just code.
• Support planning, estimation, and risk management across the project lifecycle, flagging architectural risk early.

What You'll Need to Be Successful

• 9+ years of hands-on software or systems engineering experience, including experience designing and owning architecture for complex, client-facing solutions.
• Understanding and ability to solve complex client problems that will impact client business.
• Proven ability to evaluate an existing technology landscape and make a clear, defensible recommendation, including build-vs-buy and platform trade-offs.
• Strong grounding across at least two of the following: application architecture, systems/infrastructure design, data architecture, AI/ML solutioning, and DevOps.
• Comfort learning a new domain or stack quickly (just-in-time), with enough hands-on ability to validate an approach yourself rather than only directing others.
• Experience presenting technical recommendations directly to clients, including non-technical and executive stakeholders.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and modern CI/CD practices.
• Solid understanding of databases and data platforms (SQL, NoSQL, and analytics platforms such as BigQuery).
• Clear, confident communication skills, and the judgment to know when to hold a position and when to adapt it.
• The drive to learn, adapt, and apply to the ever changing technology landscape.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a consulting or professional services environment, including supporting pre-sales, proposals, or client discovery.
• Experience architecting solutions that incorporate AI/ML capabilities into existing products or platforms.
• Experience leading architecture review boards or similar governance processes.
• A track record of guiding teams through complex technical challenges and ambiguous requirements to a shipped outcome.
• Certifications in a cloud platform or AI such as AWS Solution Architect or Claude Certified Architect

Need Another Reason to Hit the “Apply” Button?

• Codal is a global agency with over 250 employees, and offices in the US, UK, Canada, and India.
• We’re forward-thinking by design, building for the AI-driven era rather than reacting to it.
• You’ll work with clients where Codal truly owns the solution outcome, not just a scope of work.

Benefits

• Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical coverage for employees and their dependents.
• Maternity/Paternity Leave: Additional time off and support for new parents.
• Employer 401k match - 4% 
• Professional Development: Opportunities for training, workshops, and conferences to enhance employees' skills and knowledge.
• A hybrid work environment for in-person collaboration and sprint-planning days