Director, Solution Architect

Position Summary

The Solution Architect provides solution architecture and design assurance for major GSK initiatives, ensuring solutions meet architecture standards, fit the target architecture, and deliver the intended business outcomes. The role produces solution designs, builds reliability, resilience, and observability in from the start, designs AI-enabled solutions where they accelerate delivery or operations, and works across domains so that end-to-end solutions are coherent rather than locally optimal. Platform-level reference architectures and standards sit with the Platform Architects and Platform Architecture Directors in each business domain, engineering delivery sits with the platform engineering teams, and enterprise architecture strategy and the architecture team sit with the Head of Solution Architecture and the Enterprise Architects. Where a design touches platforms, the business-facing domain architect leads and this role assures.  

Responsibilities

This role will provide YOU the opportunity to lead key activities to progress YOUR career. These responsibilities include some of the following:

• Produce solution designs for major DPTF and broader Digital & Tech initiatives, aligned to reference architectures, enterprise standards, and strategy.  
• Build reliability, resilience, and observability into designs from the outset, aware of the SLOs the consuming services commit to.  

• Design AI-enabled solutions where AI genuinely accelerates delivery or operations and state the case rather than including it by default.  

• Provide design assurance and architecture review for initiatives led by others, declining designs that do not meet the standard and saying what would.  

• Balance business outcome, cost, risk, and technical fit in every design.  

• Work across platform domains so that end-to-end solutions are coherent, surfacing conflicts between domain architectures early.  

• Assure the architecture of supplier and managed-service solutions to the same standard as internal designs.  

• Uphold architecture standards and governance, routing genuine exceptions through Enterprise Architecture rather than allowing local workarounds.  

• Ensure designs meet security and compliance requirements, including GxP where the initiative supports regulated activity.  

• Reduce rework by engaging early in initiative shaping rather than reviewing completed designs, and evidence the reduction.  

• Advise on architectural risk and the consequences of the technical debt being accepted.  

• Hold the boundaries with the Platform Architects on platform-level reference architecture, the Enterprise Architects on enterprise strategy and standards, and the engineering teams on build.  

Why You?

This role is a hybrid position based in the United States of America. You will typically work both remotely and on-site as agreed with your manager.

Basic Qualification

We are seeking professionals with the following required skills and qualifications to help us achieve our goals:

• Bachelors Degree in a technology or engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience (e.g., Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems).  
• 8+ years in technology architecture or senior engineering, including at least three years producing solution designs for major initiatives.  

• Experience in more than one technology domain, sufficient to design and assure end to end rather than within a specialism.  

• Experience working with and influencing one or more business domain architects (e.g., R&D, Commercial, Global Functions, or Global Supply Chain).  

• Experience running architecture review or design assurance. 

• Experience designing solutions for reliability, resilience, and observability.  

• Experience designing secure and compliant technology solutions.  

• Experience reviewing or assuring supplier or systems integrator designs against established architecture standards.  

• Experience applying AI patterns within solution architecture or technology design.  

• Experience designing solutions across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS using Azure and/or GCP.  

• Experience with Modern Engineering workflows, including CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and observability, including AI-assisted or agentic tooling.  

• Experience creating solution architecture documentation and diagrams for technical and business audiences.  

• Experience working across multiple technology domains and communicating architectural decisions and trade-offs to stakeholders. 

Preferred Qualification

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:

• Architecture certifications, including a recognized cloud, network, or workplace architecture certification.  
• Familiarity with GxP validation requirements for solution designs, beyond platform standards.  

• Experience producing designs later delivered through third-party systems integrators.  

• Exposure to FinOps or cost-to-operate considerations in solution design decisions.  

• Hands-on experience with AI-enabled patterns, including RAG and agentic workflows, as delivery accelerants.  

• Ability to decline a design while clearly explaining what would meet the required standard.  

• Judgement about when an exception is genuinely warranted and when it is convenience.  

• Comfort engaging early in initiative shaping where requirements are still ambiguous.  

• Pragmatism about technical debt, making the cost visible rather than blocking delivery.  

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Skills

Please visit  GSK US Benefits Summary to learn more about the comprehensive benefits program GSK offers US employees.