How to hire a senior solutions architect

How to hire a senior solutions architect, step by step

Here's a step-by-step senior solutions architect hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a senior solutions architect job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior solutions architect
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a senior solutions architect do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your senior solutions architect job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a senior solutions architect for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a senior solutions architect to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a senior solutions architect that fits the bill.

   This list shows salaries for various types of senior solutions architects.

   Type of Senior Solutions Architect	Description	Hourly rate
   Senior Solutions Architect		$45-79
   Architect And Developer	An Architect And Developer is focused on the technical design, architecture, and development of products. They generally work as a part of the development team.	$40-69
   Solutions Engineer	A solutions engineer is a professional who assists customers in identifying their computer software needs and generates customized business software solutions for them. Solutions engineers collaborate with other department engineers to create practical demonstrations of proposed solutions and showcase them to the other members of the team... Show more	$32-64

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Cloud
   • AWS
   • Java
   • Infrastructure
   • Amazon Web Services
   • Digital Transformation
   • Analytics
   • Azure
   • Cloud Computing
   • Client Facing
   • Business Development
   • Web Services
   • Pre Sales
   • Emerging Technologies

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Mentore and manage offshore development teams to deliver application enhancements with focus on framework usage and java performance.
   • Project manage the end-to-end delivery of customer deployments with product engineering, professional engineering services, and infrastructure & operations teams.
   • Utilize the latest technologies including ASP.NET, MVC, iOS, WebAPI, AWS, and JAX-RS.
   • Evaluate peak utilization windows base on monthly SCRT reports.
   • Utilize AWS S3 and EC2 for scalability reliability and performance.
   • Evaluate use of various tools / applications to develop and deliver MDM solution.

   More senior solutions architect duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your senior solutions architect job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A senior solutions architect salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a senior solutions architect in Iowa may be lower than in California, and an entry-level senior solutions architect usually earns less than a senior-level senior solutions architect. Additionally, a senior solutions architect with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average senior solutions architect salary

   $125,292yearly

   $60.24 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level senior solutions architect salary

   $94,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 20, 2025

   Average senior solutions architect salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$146,347	$70
   2	New Jersey	$131,561	$63
   3	New York	$128,566	$62
   4	Washington	$128,155	$62
   5	Oregon	$123,470	$59
   6	Massachusetts	$122,430	$59
   7	North Carolina	$122,061	$59
   8	Connecticut	$122,011	$59
   9	District of Columbia	$121,929	$59
   10	Virginia	$121,542	$58
   11	Pennsylvania	$120,549	$58
   12	Mississippi	$120,490	$58
   13	Ohio	$120,476	$58
   14	Arizona	$119,738	$58
   15	Illinois	$118,805	$57
   16	Florida	$118,510	$57
   17	Texas	$117,945	$57
   18	Missouri	$116,830	$56
   19	Michigan	$116,382	$56
   20	Indiana	$116,369	$56

   Average senior solutions architect salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Twitter	$178,455	$85.80
   2	Levi Strauss & Co.	$170,144	$81.80	1
   3	DoorDash	$167,599	$80.58	1
   4	eBay	$166,531	$80.06	1
   5	Atlassian	$165,390	$79.51	36
   6	Safeway	$162,196	$77.98
   7	Uber Technologies	$162,180	$77.97
   8	Cepheid	$161,126	$77.46
   9	Quidel	$161,115	$77.46
   10	Dotdash	$160,752	$77.28
   11	Infoblox	$160,078	$76.96	4
   12	Palo Alto Networks	$159,626	$76.74	125
   13	NVIDIA	$158,618	$76.26	191
   14	Aryaka	$158,501	$76.20
   15	Bed Bath & Beyond	$157,737	$75.84
   16	Snowflake Computing	$157,602	$75.77	10
   17	The Walt Disney Company	$155,195	$74.61	44
   18	Mayo Clinic	$155,163	$74.60	6
   19	Intuitive Surgical	$154,209	$74.14	9
   20	Wizeline	$154,117	$74.09

4. Writing a senior solutions architect job description

   A job description for a senior solutions architect role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a senior solutions architect job description:

   Senior solutions architect job description example

   GDIT has a position opening for a Senior Solutions Architect to provide technical leadership and serve as a Technical Architect and manage the delivery of an Enterprise Target Infrastructure Architecture to include standardized modeling, a roadmap to execute against, a procurement strategy, facilitate executive and SME briefings to include but not be limited to progress updates, key decisions, road blocks/risks, best practices. Must have 10+ years of experience with network optimization, transformation and modernization and have experience in investment road mapping, knowledge of on-prem and cloud technologies, infrastructure, efficient communication and management experience, knowledge of cloud migration strategy.

   Work with senior level customer and end-users to define application and technical requirements. Ensure that these requirements tie back to the established customer requirements and performance goals and that the technical direction is consistent with the organizations long-term strategy. Review and integrate all application requirements, including functional, security, integration, performance, and operations requirements. Review and integrate the technical architecture requirements for the development, execution, operations and infrastructure architectures. Support the client in making decisions regarding the full technical architecture scope, including hardware/software selection. Facilitate discussion with other Subject Matter Experts and Architects. Must have experience in client briefings, clearly and succinctly on complex technical concepts.

   Qualifications:

   Mandatory

   • Strong knowledge of and experience with Microsoft Azure Architecture
   • Strong knowledge of and experience with Microsoft Azure Active Directory
   • Strong knowledge of and experience with Cisco Routing and Switching

   Scheduled Weekly Hours:

   40

   Travel Required:

   Less than 10%

   Telecommuting Options:

   Hybrid

   Work Location:

   USA DC Washington

   Additional Work Locations:

   COVID-19 Vaccination: GDIT does not have a vaccination mandate applicable to all employees. To protect the health and safety of its employees and to comply with customer requirements, however, GDIT may require employees in certain positions to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Vaccination requirements will depend on the status of the federal contractor mandate and customer site requirements.We are GDIT. The people supporting some of the most complex government, defense, and intelligence projects across the country. We deliver. Bringing the expertise needed to understand and advance critical missions. We transform. Shifting the ways clients invest in, integrate, and innovate technology solutions. We ensure today is safe and tomorrow is smarter. We are there. On the ground, beside our clients, in the lab, and everywhere in between. Offering the technology transformations, strategy, and mission services needed to get the job done.GDIT is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status, or any other protected class.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find the right senior solutions architect for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important sources of talent for any company is its existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and current employees and ask if they know or have worked with senior solutions architects they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit senior solutions architects who meet your education requirements.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now have more than 3.5 billion users, and you can use social media to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your senior solutions architect job on Zippia to find and attract quality senior solutions architect candidates.
   • Use niche websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Your first interview with senior solutions architect candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match your ideal candidate profile. If you think a candidate is good enough for the next step, you can move on to the technical interview.

   While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a senior solutions architect applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new senior solutions architect

   Once you've found the senior solutions architect candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a senior solutions architect?