Senior Solutions Architect (Data & AI)

JOB ID: FEQ427R333 Location: Leeds/Manchester, United Kingdom - remote contract Industry: Enterprise Retail or CPG (UKI Enterprise) The Role As a Sr. Solutions Architect, you are an expert-level technical leader responsible for the organisation's most complex customer engagements. You drive consumption strategy, own executive-level relationships, and serve as the definitive technical authority for your accounts. You have declared your archetype—a recognised technical specialisation that makes you a force multiplier across your team and region. You operate at the intersection of deep technical expertise, strategic account planning, and executive influence. The Impact You Will Have • Drive the technical and consumption strategy for the organisation's most complex customer engagements, directly influencing platform adoption and revenue growth. • Own senior-level technical relationships — serving as a trusted advisor on enterprise data and AI strategy • Lead the most complex architecture engagements: multi-workload platforms, enterprise-wide migrations, real-time systems, and AI/ML at scale • Operate as an Expert on the Databricks Platform with a declared archetype — actively mentoring others and driving horizontal impact across your team • Develop and execute competitive strategies for your customers, positioning Databricks against incumbent and emerging platforms • Orchestrate cross-functional teams (DSAs, SSAs, Partners, Product) to deliver enterprise-grade solutions • Coach and develop junior SAs (L3–L5) on technical depth, customer engagement, and use case prioritisation • Contribute to Field Engineering thought leadership through customer-facing content, workshops, and community engagement What We Look For • 8+ years in solutions architecture, principal engineering, technical pre-sales leadership, or a senior customer-facing technical role • Expert-level coding proficiency — Python, SQL, and ideally Spark/PySpark. You will complete a live coding assessment and a platform build during the interview • Deep expertise in enterprise data architecture: distributed systems at scale, streaming/real-time, lakehouse design patterns, data governance frameworks, and cloud-native platforms • Expert-level Databricks Platform knowledge (or equivalent depth in competing platforms with demonstrated rapid learning ability) • Declared technical specialisation with recognised depth — e.g., real-time architectures, ML/AI platforms, data governance, large-scale migrations, or industry-specific solutions • Proven track record of driving consumption growth and platform adoption in large accounts • Executive presence — ability to influence Directors, VPs, and C-level stakeholders on long-term data and AI strategy • Experience leading competitive displacements and complex enterprise evaluations • Strong strategic thinking — connecting technical architecture decisions to business outcomes and revenue impact • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a quantitative discipline (or equivalent experience); advanced degrees are valued Nice to Have: • Databricks certifications • Prior experience at Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, Google, Microsoft, or a top-tier data/AI company • Published thought leadership (blogs, conference talks, open source contributions) • Industry experience in Retail or Consumer Packaged Goods with executive-level domain credibility Interview Process: Recruiter Screen → Hiring Manager Screen → Design and Architecture Interview → Live Coding Assessment → Build, Demo, Pitch! Presentation → Reference Check About Databricks Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 20,000 organizations worldwide — including adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard, Rivian, Unilever, and 70% of the F