AI Solution Architect
iqbusiness South Africa
We are recruiting an AI Solutions Architect to lead the design and delivery of enterprise-grade AI and Generative AI solutions across cloud platforms, with a strong emphasis on production deployment, business value and consulting-led delivery.
This role sits at the intersection of:
- Solution architecture (end-to-end systems design)
- AI engineering (capability awareness, not hands-on build ownership)
- Consulting (client engagement, commercial alignment, pre-sales)
The successful candidate will translate complex business problems into scalable AI architectures, lead multidisciplinary teams, and ensure AI solutions are aligned to enterprise systems, governance, and measurable outcomes.
Role Context & Positioning
- Senior member of the AI & Data capability working across multiple client engagements
- Acts as the bridge between AI engineering, architecture, and business stakeholders
- Owns solution design, architecture governance and delivery oversight
- Plays a key role in pre-sales, client shaping, and capability development
Responsibilities
AI Solution Architecture & Design
- Lead the design of end-to-end AI architectures across data, application and integration layers
- Generative AI (LLMs, RAG, agents)
- Document intelligence and automation
- Enterprise AI platforms and APIs
- Define:
- Data flow, integration patterns, and system architecture
- Retrieval, orchestration and agent interaction patterns
- Security, governance and deployment architectures
Client Advisory & Solution Shaping
- Lead discovery workshops and use case definition sessions
- Translate business problems into AI-enabled solutions and architecture blueprints
- Advise clients on:
- AI adoption roadmaps
- Architecture approaches (build vs buy vs hybrid)
- Trade-offs, risks, and ROI
Delivery Leadership
Own architecture across delivery lifecycle: Discovery design build oversight deployment
- optimisation
- Guide engineering teams on:
- Architecture decisions
- Design patterns and best practice
- Ensure:
- Production-grade delivery
- Alignment to enterprise systems and constraints
Cloud AI Architecture
- Architect solutions across at least one hyperscaler (Azure preferred), including:
- Azure OpenAI, AI Foundry, AI Search, Document Intelligence
- Equivalent AWS (Bedrock) or GCP (Vertex AI) services
- Define:
- Deployment patterns (APIs, microservices, serverless)
- Integration into enterprise ecosystems
- Security, networking and governance models
Data & AI Platform Design
- Design data foundations required for AI:
- Data pipelines, ingestion patterns, storage and modelling
- Vector databases, embeddings and retrieval strategies
- Ensure:
- Data quality, lineage, and governance alignment
- AI-readiness of enterprise data platforms
Pre-Sales & Commercial Contribution
- Support and lead:
- Solution design for proposals and RFPs
- Estimation, costing and effort modelling
- Contribute to:
- Client pitches and demos
- Opportunity shaping and deal conversion
Capability Building & Thought Leadership
- Develop:
- Reference architectures and reusable solution patterns
- Mentor:
- Engineers and consultants
- Contribute to:
- Internal capability development and AI maturity
Requirements
Consulting & Leadership
- 7–12+ years in technology, data or solution architecture
- 3–5+ years in consulting / client-facing architecture roles
- Proven experience:
- Leading AI or data engagements
- Managing multidisciplinary teams
- Engaging senior stakeholders and executives
AI & Generative AI
- Practical experience designing solutions involving:
- LLMs and Generative AI applications
- RAG architectures and retrieval systems
- AI agents / orchestration patterns
- Strong understanding of:
- Prompting, evaluation and guardrails
- Enterprise AI use cases and limitations
Solution Architecture
- Strong experience designing:
- Distributed systems and microservice architectures
- API-driven integrations
- Enterprise-scale cloud solutions
- Ability to clearly articulate architecture decisions and trade-offs
Cloud (At least one CSP, Azure preferred)
- Azure (preferred): OpenAI, AI Foundry, Synapse, Data Lake, App Services
- AWS: Bedrock, Lambda, S3
- GCP: Vertex AI, Cloud Run
Data & AI Platform Understanding
- Strong grounding in:
- Data engineering concepts (pipelines, modelling, lakehouse)
- AI system data flows (embeddings, chunking, indexing)
- Experience designing AI-ready data ecosystems
Business & Communication
- Ability to:
- Translate technical designs into business outcomes
- Communicate with C-suite and architecture boards
- Strong commercial acumen and delivery mindset
As all iqbusiness roles require honesty in the handling of or access to cash, finances, financial systems, or confidential information; our recruitment process requires that the following background checks be completed: credit, criminal, ID, and qualification verification
iqbusiness is committed to sustainable growth and transformation, we embrace diversity and employ previously disadvantaged individuals