OverviewAdastra Canada is looking for a well-rounded senior architect to lead the technical side of our pursuits turning an ambiguous client problem into an architecture, a delivery approach, and a number the client believes. The role spans cloud foundations, applications and integration, data platforms, and AI.
Primary Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Work Model: Hybrid 2-Days Onsite
Employment Type: Permanent Full-Time
Vacancy Status: Backfill
Compensation Range: $180,000 to 200,000
RESPONSIBILITIES
Presales Solution Leadership
- Lead the technical side of opportunities from qualification to signature, alongside sales, alliances, and delivery.
- Run discovery workshops with client architects, technology leaders, and business stakeholders, and turn what you hear into a defensible target architecture.
- Design solutions end to end — cloud foundations, applications and integration, data, analytics and AI, security and governance — and lead platform selection on honest trade-offs rather than preference.
- Build cost models and sizing estimates that hold up after the deal closes, including licensing, consumption, and commitment options.
- Own the technical content of RFP and proposal responses, and lead demonstrations, deep dives, and proofs of concept.
Technology Breadth
- Cloud foundations: landing zones, multi-account or multi-subscription design, identity, networking, security, and cost management on Azure, AWS, or both.
- Microsoft: Fabric (OneLake, Lakehouse and Warehouse, Data Factory, Real-Time Intelligence), Azure SQL, Synapse-era estates, Purview, and Power BI.
- AWS: Redshift, S3 lakehouse patterns with Glue and Lake Formation, Athena, EMR, Kinesis and MSK, and Aurora, RDS, or DynamoDB.
- Databricks: lakehouse architecture on any cloud — Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Delta Live Tables, and the cost and workload isolation decisions around them.
- Snowflake: warehouse sizing and cost control, Snowpark, data sharing, and Horizon governance.
- Cross-cutting: open table formats such as Delta and Iceberg, dbt, streaming and CDC patterns, and migrations off legacy applications, Oracle and SQL Server, warehouses, and Hadoop.
- Applications and integration: API and event-driven design, microservices and containers, middleware modernization, DevOps and infrastructure as code.
Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology
- Act as the presales authority on applied AI: Azure OpenAI and AI Foundry, Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker, Databricks Mosaic AI, and Snowflake Cortex, alongside classical machine learning.
- Design RAG and agentic solutions, separate real opportunities from expensive experiments, and build business cases with realistic assumptions on data readiness, effort, and running cost.
- Build responsible AI, security, and data residency controls into the design, and explain them to risk and compliance stakeholders.
QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
Required
- Eight or more years in enterprise technology, data, or cloud consulting, with at least four in presales, solution architecture, or technical sales.
- Architecture breadth across cloud infrastructure, applications and integration, and data and analytics — enough to own the whole solution, not one layer.
- Deep hands-on experience with at least two of Azure, AWS, Databricks, and Snowflake, and working fluency with the others.
- Experience designing and positioning AI solutions, including generative AI patterns and the guardrails enterprise risk teams expect.
- A track record of leading competitive pursuits, from qualification through proposal , on six-figure and larger engagements.
- Exceptional communication skills, from a CIO conversation about outcomes to a whiteboard session with engineers.
- A collaborative style: able to pull the right expertise from the delivery practices into a pursuit and work with sales, alliances, and leadership on qualification, pricing, and go-to-market.
- Eligibility to work in Canada and willingness to travel occasionally within North America.
NICE TO HAVE
- Prior experience at a consulting partner or a platform vendor, with working knowledge of co-sell, partner programs, and cloud marketplaces.
- Industry depth in financial services, insurance, retail, healthcare, or the public sector; professional proficiency in French.
- Certifications across more than one vendor, for example Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Databricks Data Engineer Professional, or SnowPro Advanced.
