OverviewA major airline is seeking an experienced Solution Architect to join a growing Architecture function supporting a critical transformation across the Airline Operations domain.This role sits at the heart of delivery, bridging architecture, engineering, and product leadership. You will define the end-to-end solution architecture for a strategic operational mission, ensuring multiple product teams deliver a coherent, scalable and resilient capability.This is not a slideware architecture role. The successful contractor will actively shape solutions, set technical guardrails, unblock delivery and ensure architecture integrity while enabling teams to move at pace.If you enjoy solving complex operational problems, aligning multiple engineering teams, and designing systems that genuinely keep an airline running, this is the sort of challenge worth taking on.Key ResponsibilitiesProvide architecture leadership for a mission-focused product domain, defining the mission-level solution architecture vision for product teams to align toShape end-to-end solutions across multiple product teams, platforms and technology domains, ensuring consistency and alignmentDefine solution guardrails, principles, reference architectures and reusable patterns to drive scalable and maintainable solutionsPartner closely with Product Leads, Tech Leads and Delivery Leads to ensure cohesive solution design and successful deliveryDesign and oversee cross-team integrations, shared components and data flows across the operational ecosystemIdentify and resolve cross-team dependencies, architectural risks and integration challenges early in the delivery lifecycleEnsure solutions align with enterprise architecture strategy, standards and governance frameworksCommunicate architectural decisions, trade-offs and risks clearly to both technical and business stakeholdersLead architecture assurance and governance activities, ensuring scalability, reliability, security and operabilityCoach engineering teams on architectural thinking, design patterns and reusable solution approachesYour ProfileWe are looking for an architect who is comfortable operating across both technical depth and organisational complexity.Strong background in Solution Architecture within large-scale, operational or mission-critical environmentsDemonstrable experience designing end-to-end solutions spanning multiple teams, systems or domainsProven experience working in agile, product-led or mission-driven organisationsStrong understanding of modern distributed architecture, including cloud native environments (AWS preferred), microservices, APIs and event-driven designExperience designing integration-heavy platforms with shared data models and service contractsExcellent stakeholder engagement skills across engineering teams, product leadership and business stakeholdersAbility to communicate technical solutions in clear commercial and operational termsStrong decision making capability, balancing delivery timelines, cost, risk and technical debtAwareness of emerging technology trends and their practical application within complex operational systemsExperience mentoring engineers and technical leads in architecture best practiceExperience within airline or transport operations systems such as crew management, disruption management, scheduling or flight planningExposure to AI, machine learning or optimisation models used in operational decision makingPractical experience working with optimisation engines such as Gurobi or CPLEX #J-18808-Ljbffr