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In a context where technological innovation determines the competitiveness and sustainability of organizations, the solutions architect plays a decisive role. As a bridge between business challenges and technological choices, this expert ensures the coherence, modularity, and security of your information system. Their strategic and operational vision enables the design of scalable, resilient architectures aligned with your business objectives. Whether you are an IT director, CEO, or IT project manager, understanding their scope and strengths will help you structure your projects and manage risks from the earliest design phases.
Definition and Mission of the IT Solutions Architect
The solutions architect translates business requirements into operational technological blueprints. They ensure the coherence, scalability, and security of all components of the information system.
A Cross-Functional, Business-Centric Vision
The solutions architect intervenes very early in the technical implementation, gathering and translating business objectives into functional and non-functional requirements. They formalize these expectations in the form of use cases, User Stories, or functional diagrams that serve as the basis for development teams.
Beyond simple framing, they assess potential impacts on the existing system and operational processes. They anticipate friction points, identify interdependencies, and propose adjustments to avoid technological or functional silos.
By working closely with stakeholders—business units, IT department, cybersecurity, and operational support—they ensure decision traceability and foster buy-in through transparent and documented communication.
Designing the Target IT Architecture
Based on the initial framework, the solutions architect develops the target architecture, describing software components, information flows, and interfaces between modules. They define integration standards, communication protocols, and deployment schemes.
They favor a hybrid approach, combining open source components, cloud services, and custom developments to optimize the balance between time-to-market, total cost of ownership, and future flexibility. Technological choices are justified by criteria such as scalability, performance, and security.
The architect produces deliverables (UML models, C4 diagrams, traceability matrices) that guide implementation teams and serve as reference during code reviews or compliance audits.
Concrete Example of Hiring an IT Solutions Architect in a Swiss Company
A Zurich-based insurance company enlisted an IT solutions architect to overhaul its claims management ecosystem. The expert designed a modular architecture based on microservices, integrating secure REST APIs and business workflows orchestrated by an open source BPM engine. This new platform reduced claim processing times by 40% while automatically scaling during seasonal peak periods.
Comparison with Other IT Architect Roles
The solutions architect stands out for their ability to pragmatically link business and IT. Other roles (software, infrastructure, cloud, enterprise) focus on narrower scopes.
Software Architect vs. IT Solutions Architect
The software architect focuses primarily on the internal structure of applications: framework selection, development patterns, module decomposition, and code quality management. Their domain covers the application lifecycle, from UML modeling to production deployment.
They define coding standards, Git repository organization, unit and integration testing strategies, and associated CI/CD pipelines. Their expertise ensures maintainability and scalability of individual applications.
However, they do not directly handle system orchestration or integration with third-party solutions or cloud platforms. Those responsibilities typically fall to the solutions architect or infrastructure architect.
Infrastructure Architect vs. IT Solutions Architect
The infrastructure architect is responsible for the physical or virtualized layer: servers, networks, storage, hypervisors, and containers. Their role involves sizing resources, configuring clusters and load balancers, and defining network topology.
They ensure data center resilience, high availability, business continuity, and data protection. Choices cover storage types (block, object, file), backup and restore policies, and virtualization or container technologies.
Although central to the IS robustness, they are not always involved in functional design or the selection of business application components, tasks assigned to the solutions architect.
Cloud Architect and Enterprise Architect vs. IT Solutions Architect
The cloud architect designs PaaS, IaaS, or SaaS environments, optimizing sizing and managed services from hyperscalers. They oversee lift-and-shift migrations, Kubernetes cluster deployments, and infrastructure as code automation.
The enterprise architect, on the other hand, operates at a macro level: defining the IT roadmap, guiding governance, and ensuring strategic alignment. They collaborate with IT urban planners and create business-application mappings.
The IT solutions architect sits at the intersection of these two spheres: connecting the company’s macro vision with concrete cloud execution while staying focused on delivering business use cases.
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Key Responsibilities of the IT Solutions Architect in an IT Project
The solutions architect leads technical design and functional governance. They ensure tracking, documentation, and compliance throughout the project.
Functional Scoping and IT Project Governance
From the initialization phase, they facilitate co-design workshops with business units and the IT department to consolidate scope, identify interfaces, and define success criteria. They formalize a prioritized backlog based on business value and technical risks.
They establish governance bodies (steering committee, architecture board) to validate key decisions and arbitrate trade-offs. They ensure stakeholder alignment and decision transparency.
Simultaneously, they write or approve reference documentation: functional specifications, requirements traceability matrix, architectural diagrams, and technical data sheets for each component.
Design and Technological Choices
Based on requirements, they detail the distribution of technical responsibilities: microservices, API gateways, event buses, containers, or serverless functions. They select languages, frameworks, and databases suited to the context and expected volumes.
They evaluate open source versus proprietary solutions, considering vendor lock-in risks, licensing costs, and community maturity. They document the benefits and limitations of each option.
They propose architecture scenarios (blue-green deployment, canary release, multi-region) to meet performance, high availability, and disaster recovery requirements.
Documentation, Compliance, and Risk Management
The solutions architect develops a best-practices repository including security standards, nLPD and GDPR requirements, and other regulatory constraints. They enforce secrets management policies and the encryption of sensitive data.
They regularly conduct architecture reviews to detect deviations and update design documents. In case of divergence, they propose remediation plans and adjust the target architecture as needed.
They formalize the technical risk impact analysis (failures, vulnerabilities, obsolescence) and integrate mitigation strategies: load tests, security audits, and phased deprecation of unsupported components.
Practical Illustration of Implementing a Data Hub Solution by a Specialized Architect
In a Swiss distribution chain, the solutions architect orchestrated the implementation of a centralized data hub. They chose a Kafka bus for streaming, configured microservices for order orchestration, and ensured PCI DSS compliance. As a result, stock synchronization time went from several hours to a few seconds while maintaining transaction traceability.
Essential Skills and Certifications for the Solutions Architect
To excel, the IT solutions architect combines technical expertise, leadership, and continuous learning. AWS, Azure, Google, and ITIL certifications are widely recognized, but hands-on experience remains paramount.
Key Technical Skills to Verify Before Hiring a Solutions Architect
Proficiency in multiple languages (Java, Node.js, Python) and frameworks (Spring Boot, NestJS) enables adaptation of the architecture to use cases. Knowledge of microservices, REST APIs, event-driven, and serverless paradigms is essential.
The ability to design robust CI/CD pipelines using GitLab CI, Jenkins, or GitHub Actions ensures smooth deployments and code quality. Practicing infrastructure as code (Terraform, ARM templates) guarantees traceability of infrastructure changes.
Understanding security principles (OWASP, encryption, IAM) and non-functional requirements (scalability, observability, performance) determines system resilience and maintainability.
Managerial and Interpersonal Skills for Successful Recruitment
The architect must develop influential leadership, capable of bringing together technical experts and business decision-makers. Their pedagogical approach eases understanding of architectural decisions and acceptance of trade-offs.
Organizational rigor and facilitation skills strengthen collaboration between the IT department, cybersecurity, operations, and business units. They manage priorities and maintain a balance between speed of delivery and technical quality.
Their relational agility allows them to anticipate friction, propose real-time alternatives, and adjust the roadmap based on feedback and evolving context.
Certifications and Continuous Training for IT Solutions Architects
AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or Google Professional Cloud Architect certifications attest to mastery of major cloud environments and their core infrastructure and data services.
An ITIL Foundation or DASA DevOps certification ensures an understanding of governance and service management best practices. TOGAF certifications can be relevant for those working at a more strategic level of IT urban planning.
Beyond formal credentials, participating in meetups, monitoring RFCs and specialized blogs, and contributing to open source projects enrich expertise and foster innovation.
Enhance the Agility and Sustainability of Your IT Projects by Hiring a Solutions Architect
The role of the solutions architect is a strategic lever to ensure the coherence, scalability, and security of your information system. By defining best practices, leading governance, and selecting appropriate technologies, they minimize risks and accelerate the deployment of priority business use cases.
Whether revamping an existing platform or launching a new digital project, having a well-thought-out architecture is a key success factor. Our Edana experts combine pragmatic experience with mastery of open source and cloud ecosystems and are at your disposal to support you from strategy to execution.
