AI Solutions Architect

As an AI Solutions Architect, you will be responsible for designing and leading the delivery of enterprise AI solutions built on Microsoft's AI platform. Working closely with customers, consultants, developers, project managers and Microsoft, you will define solution architectures that enable organisations to adopt AI securely, responsibly and at scale.

This is a senior customer-facing role focused on translating business challenges into scalable technical solutions using Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI, Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform technologies. You will provide architectural leadership across the full project lifecycle, from pre-sales and discovery through to solution design, governance, implementation and production deployment.

You will act as a trusted advisor to customers and provide technical leadership within CPS, helping shape our AI strategy, propositions, delivery standards and reusable solution accelerators.

Requirements

Solution Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Lead the architecture and design of AI, Copilot and Agentic AI solutions using Microsoft technologies.
• Design scalable, secure and maintainable solutions across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform.
• Define solution architectures, integration patterns, governance controls and security requirements.
• Design multi-agent solutions, orchestration patterns and agent operating models.
• Define approaches for knowledge management, grounding, retrieval and enterprise search capabilities.
• Establish architectural standards, reusable components and best practices for AI solution delivery.
• Provide technical assurance and architecture reviews across customer engagements.

Customer Engagement & Advisory

• Act as a trusted advisor to customer stakeholders, architects and technical teams.
• Lead discovery workshops, architecture reviews and technical design sessions.
• Translate business requirements into scalable AI solution designs and implementation roadmaps.
• Support customers in developing AI strategies, governance frameworks and operating models.
• Provide technical leadership during proof of concepts, pilot programmes and production deployments.
• Support customer executive stakeholders in understanding AI opportunities, risks and investment decisions.

Pre-Sales & Business Development

• Support CPS sales and pre-sales activities for AI opportunities.
• Contribute to proposals, statements of work and solution designs.
• Participate in customer demonstrations, workshops and technical presentations.
• Support effort estimation, solution sizing and technical risk assessments.
• Collaborate with Microsoft teams and technology partners on strategic opportunities.

Practice Development & Innovation

• Stay current with emerging Microsoft AI technologies and roadmap developments.
• Build reusable architectures, accelerators, reference designs and demonstration environments.
• Support the development of new AI propositions and service offerings.
• Mentor consultants and provide technical leadership across the AI Practice.
• Contribute to CPS thought leadership through blogs, events, webinars and industry engagement.
• Support CPS in achieving Microsoft partner designations, specialisations and advanced certifications.

Technical Skills & Experience

Essential

·       Strong experience designing and delivering enterprise AI solutions using Microsoft technologies.

·       Deep knowledge of Microsoft Copilot Studio, Agent Builder and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

·       Strong understanding of Power Platform, including Power Automate, Power Apps and Dataverse.

·       Working knowledge of Azure AI services, Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI capabilities.

·       Experience designing integrations across Microsoft 365, business applications and external systems.

·       Strong understanding of solution architecture principles across data, security, governance and scalability.

·       Experience designing secure and responsible AI solutions within enterprise environments.

·       Strong understanding of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), grounding strategies and knowledge architectures.

·       Experience facilitating discovery workshops and translating business requirements into technical solution designs.

·       Excellent stakeholder engagement, consulting and communication skills.

·       Experience supporting pre-sales activities, solution design and technical estimation.

Desirable

• Microsoft Fabric
• OneLake
• Data Engineering
• Data Warehousing
• Real-Time Intelligence
• Power BI
• Azure AI
• Azure AI Foundry
• Azure OpenAI
• AI Agents
• Prompt Flows
• Model orchestration
• Agentic AI Architecture
• Multi-agent systems
• Agent orchestration
• Human-in-the-loop patterns
• Agent governance and observability
• AI Engineering Concepts
• Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Semantic search
• Vector databases
• Grounding strategies
• Knowledge architectures
• Enterprise Architecture
• Identity and access management
• Security and compliance
• Environment strategy
• DevOps and deployment approaches
• Experience working within a Microsoft Partner organisation.

Preferred Certifications (not essential)

Microsoft AI

• AI-900: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals
• AI-102: Azure AI Engineer Associate
• Microsoft Applied Skills: Build custom agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio
• Microsoft Applied Skills: Create copilots with generative AI
• Microsoft Applied Skills: Build agentic solutions using Azure AI Foundry

Microsoft Power Platform

• PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals
• PL-200: Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate
• PL-400: Power Platform Developer Associate

Microsoft Data & Analytics

• DP-600: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
• PL-300: Power BI Data Analyst Associate

Microsoft 365

• MS-900: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals
• MS-102: Microsoft 365 Administrator

Architecture & Consulting

• TOGAF (desirable)
• Prosci Change Practitioner (desirable)
• Experience leading enterprise architecture and digital transformation programmes

Benefits

Some of the benefits which are integrated as part of being a colleague at CPS includes:

•          9 Day Fortnight – three day weekend every other week

•          Vitality – Private Medical Insurance

•          YuLife – Income Protection and employee discounts benefits

•          Health Assured – Employee Wellbeing Support 

•          Medicash – Health Cash Plan

•          25 days holiday – increasing to 26 days after 1 year, to 27 days after 2 years and to 28 days after 5 years

•          Have your birthday as an additional day off from work. Can be adjusted to be taken within a week of your birthday if that is your preference

•          Quarterly and annual star performer awards and rewarded with prizes – voted for by your peers and colleagues 

•          Annual professional training budget to support your Personal Development Plan 

•          Award winning culture http://www.greatplacetowork.co.uk/best-workplaces/besthttp://www.greatplacetowork.co.uk/best-workplaces/best-workplaces-in-the-ukworkplaces-in-the-uk  

•          Fortnightly ‘Engagement’ survey to assess staff Happiness levels

•          Quarterly company meetings with associated social/team building events

•          Workplace pension scheme which goes beyond the standard schemes

•          No arduous annual appraisal process – your line manager will hold a 1-2-1 with you quarterly, as a minimum, to review and realign your objectives and your PDP as appropriate

•          Free on-site parking, subject to availability

•          Long service recognition at 5, 10, 15, 20 years and onwards 

•          Unlimited hot and cold refreshments throughout the day in the Marlow office

•          Complimentary fruit & snacks

•          Monthly Fat/Fit Fridays! (pre-pandemic) 

•          Free chair massages - head, arms, shoulders and back (pre-pandemic)

•          Regular social activities such as a summer event