Lead Solutions Architect

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Full job description

Merkle seeks a senior Solution Architect to lead the technical vision and delivery quality for enterprise-grade digital platforms. The role requires full project autonomy and accountability for technical excellence across all technology domains. Responsibilities include defining unified architecture, leading solution design for performance and scalability, providing architectural oversight, enforcing technical standards, making final technical decisions, and managing proof of concepts. The architect will act as the primary client technical contact, present solutions to stakeholders, lead pitches, and collaborate with business analysts and development teams. Additional duties include establishing governance, maintaining documentation, managing technical risks, planning go-live and feature sequencing, participating in project planning, mentoring architects and teams, and driving continuous improvement. Qualifications include 10+ years of software engineering and architecture experience across multiple domains, expertise in headless and composable architectures, API design (REST, GraphQL), experience with CMS platforms (Contentful, Sitecore, Sanity, Optimizely), cloud deployment (Vercel, AWS, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages), CI/CD, strong communication, leadership, agile experience, and ability to work independently. Preferred experience includes agency/consulting, client-facing pitches, e-commerce platforms, and backend/middleware technologies like Node.js and serverless functions. Benefits include medical, vision, dental, life insurance, disability insurance, 401k, flexible PTO, paid holidays, sick leave, and parental leave. The position is hybrid with office presence expected three days per week for Chicago-based employees.