Senior Solutions Architect, Pre-sales | Remote

About the Opportunity: Ellucian is seeking an accomplished, customer-focused Senior Solutions Architect to join our Services Solutions team within Sales and lead the design and development of scalable, cloud-based SaaS solutions that shape the future of higher education. In this role, you will serve as a senior technical partner in the pre-sales process, working with sales teams, customer stakeholders, and product engineering leaders to discover needs, design solutions, lead demonstrations and proofs of concept, and articulate business and technical value that enables institutions to make informed technology decisions and drive student success. You will lead cross-functional solution initiatives and apply modern architecture and development practices across cloud platforms, development frameworks, and AI-assisted technologies. This hands-on leadership role requires the ability to navigate ambiguity, evaluate trade-offs, mitigate technical risk, and guide solutions from early discovery through successful transition to delivery. This is an ideal opportunity for an experienced solutions architect who combines deep technical expertise with consultative customer engagement, executive-level communication, and a passion for mentoring others. At Ellucian, we value innovation, continuous learning, and the power of technology to transform the student experience. Where you will make an impact Solution Architecture & Strategy: Lead discovery and architecture for scalable, secure, and resilient SaaS solutions, translating institutional goals and complex requirements into clear technical strategies, solution blueprints, and implementation roadmaps. Technical Pre-Sales Leadership: Partner with sales teams to shape opportunities, facilitate customer workshops, respond to technical questions and RFPs, and lead compelling demonstrations, prototypes, and proofs of concept that communicate differentiated business value. SaaS Architecture & Technical Development: Design and build scalable solutions and reusable patterns on our SaaS platform, including front-end cards and pages, extensions, integrations, APIs, and data-driven end user experiences. Cloud, DevOps & Reliability: Define and promote CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, automated deployment, observability, security, and reliability practices using tools such as Bitbucket, Jenkins, and Terraform to accelerate consistent solution delivery. Pre-Sales Excellence & AI Innovation: Establish standards for maintainability, documentation, testing, security, and architecture review while responsibly leveraging AI tools and platforms to improve internal and client-facing workflows and deliver intelligent capabilities for higher education. Cross-Functional Leadership & Mentorship: Lead cross-functional collaboration across sales, product, delivery, and engineering teams, drive Agile planning and execution, mentor less-experienced architects, and ensure a seamless transition from pre-sales through implementation. What You Will Bring

Experience: 7+ years of progressive experience in software, cloud, or solution engineering, including 3+ years in solutions architecture, technical pre-sales, consulting, or a comparable customer-facing technical role. Customer & Executive Engagement: Demonstrated success leading discovery sessions, technical workshops, executive briefings, and solution presentations, with the ability to translate complex technical trade-offs into clear business outcomes for diverse audiences. Architecture & Programming: Strong proficiency in one or more languages such as JavaScript/TypeScript, C#, Java, Python, or Go, with strong command of software architecture, design patterns, distributed systems, and secure coding practices. Application & Cloud Technologies: Hands-on experience with modern front-end frameworks (e.g., React, HTML5), back-end services and APIs, and at least one major cloud platform such as AWS, Azure, or GCP; multi-cloud experience is a plus. Software Engineering Fundamentals: Deep understanding of object-oriented and functional design, data structures, algorithms, performance, scalability, resilience, and the trade-offs involved in building production-ready enterprise solutions. APIs & Integrations: Extensive experience designing RESTful or GraphQL APIs and integration architectures, including authentication, authorization, event-driven patterns, and scalable approaches for connecting enterprise systems. Databases: Strong working knowledge of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL), non-relational databases (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB), and cloud-native data services, including data modeling and performance considerations. DevOps & Tooling: Proven experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, automated testing, deployment automation, and operational tooling; experience with Terraform, containers, and cloud automation is strongly preferred. AI & Innovation: Practical experience evaluating or applying AI-powered tools to accelerate coding, testing, automation, and solution design, with sound judgment around security, privacy, governance, and responsible use. Leadership & Collaboration: Ability to operate independently, lead multiple complex workstreams, mentor colleagues, influence without direct authority, and collaborate effectively across sales, product, engineering, and services teams.