◆ Information Technology

What a solutions architect
really does.

20 tasks, each one witnessed by the sources that watched the job — and behind every one, a prompt you can use tonight.

20evidenced tasks
435,370in the US (2025)
$116,580median pay / year
8systems it runs on
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Understand specific system requirements
Map the new billing service requirements to the existing platform: lis…2 sources agree

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The work, task by task

20 tasks
Hands on the work14
Understand specific system requirements+
Map the new billing service requirements to the existing platform: list required APIs, data stores, scalability targets, and nonfunctional constraints, then highlight three integration risks and mitigation options for Monday morning.
jdonet2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Troubleshoot system issues+
Diagnose the intermittent timeout affecting the payments API: gather recent logs, reproduce the failure pattern in a staging cluster, list probable root causes with evidence, and propose two fixes for review by the on-call lead today.
jdonet2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Implement system architecture designs+
Produce the system architecture diagrams and a deployment checklist that map the new payment service to our cloud regions, include API contracts, data flow for user authentication, and a hardware sizing estimate so the platform team can provision by next Wednesday.
escojd2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Maintain system security and integrity+
Audit the network segments and IAM roles for the customer portal, produce a prioritized list of security fixes with impact estimates and remediation owners, and schedule an emergency patch window with the ops team for Friday morning.
jdonet2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Evaluate new technologies for system integration+
Evaluate Confluent, Kong, and HashiCorp for integrating our CRM, billing, and inventory systems this quarter; map required adapters, estimate implementation effort in person-days, and recommend one with risks, costs, and a migration outline for the CTO by next Wednesday.
jdonet2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Verify stability, interoperability, portability, security, or scalability of system architecture.+
Run an interoperability and scalability review of the payment processing architecture against the order service and analytics pipeline, list incompatibilities, required configuration changes, and security gaps, and propose mitigation steps for operations to implement before peak sales week.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Direct the analysis, development, and operation of complete computer systems.+
Lead the end-to-end delivery of the new customer data platform: define component responsibilities, produce a phased development plan with acceptance criteria, assign owners for API, storage, and ingestion, and set the go-live readiness checkpoints for the program manager.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Configure servers to meet functional specifications.+
Configure the three application servers to meet the spec: set JVM memory, connection pool sizes, TLS certs, and load balancer targets; validate against the functional checklist and record the final configuration for the ops runbook.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Grow the practice3
Watch and assess3

What the work runs on

named inside the evidenced tasks
6 tasksApache Airfloworchestrate and schedule the log-collection and repro workflows if needed
4 tasksAmazon Web Services AWSdefines cloud services and architectural constraints used when mapping system requirements
4 tasksAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2use staging instances to reproduce issues and collect system metrics and logs
3 tasksAnsibleorchestrates configuration checks and remedial changes across hosts to validate and enforce the security fixes
2 tasksAmazon Web Services AWS CloudFormationmodels infrastructure as code and captures deployment topology for the architecture deliverable
1 taskAJAXdescribes the asynchronous web interactions and API behaviour needed by the application components
1 taskApache Cassandraexamines data storage patterns and access controls to validate security posture for persisted data
1 taskAdobe Acrobatcompile the brief and summary into a single review-ready PDF for distribution and comments
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The same task, four heights

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Can AI actually do this job?

the honest answer

It can

where it genuinely helps
  • Explain the theory behind the work
  • Draft, tidy and structure your writing
  • Rehearse a hard conversation before you have it
  • Build a study plan that fits your gaps

It cannot

where it stops, completely
  • Be in the room where a solutions architect actually works
  • Carry the responsibility when the call is wrong — that weight stays yours
  • Notice what no one wrote down: the hesitation, the thing left unsaid
  • Live with the outcome

What the work pays

two countries, two different measures

United States

this exact occupation · BLS 2025
  • $116,580 a year — the middle: half earn more, half earn less
  • The lowest tenth earn near $55,940; the top tenth near $188,470
  • 435,370 people employed in this occupation

India

the occupation GROUP, not this job · PLFS via ILOSTAT 2025
  • ₹38,298 a month — the median for Professionals, the group this work sits in
  • India publishes pay by broad occupation group, so this covers many jobs besides this one. It is a shape, not a salary.
read this carefullyThese two numbers are not comparable and must not be converted into each other. One is a yearly figure for this job alone; the other is a monthly figure for a whole family of jobs. What travels between them is the pattern, not the amount: experience lifts pay almost everywhere.

Where the evidence lives

open any of it yourself
O*NETThe US Department of Labor's own record of this job13 of these tasks ESCOThe European skills and occupations register4 of these tasks Job descriptionsReal postings, in the wild10 of these tasks US Bureau of Labor StatisticsPay and employment, by occupation2025 figures UK NOS SFJZI01Provide solutions to, and advise on, complex technical support tasksnational standard UK NOS ESKITP4013Systems Architecture Level 3 Rolenational standard

Close to this work

7 nearby
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Questions people actually ask

You spend the morning reviewing system requirements, reading architecture docs, and checking alerts from AWS (for example EC2 instances or CloudFormation stacks).

Afternoons are meetings: design reviews, white papers or technical reports, and coordinating with admins who configure servers or run Ansible playbooks. You also test interoperability and run scripted tests (Airflow jobs or unit tests) to verify stability and scalability.

Expect to work with cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS): EC2 for compute and CloudFormation for infrastructure-as-code. You’ll also use tools like Ansible for configuration, Apache Airflow for workflow scheduling, and databases such as Apache Cassandra.

You might use AJAX in web interfaces and Adobe Acrobat to produce technical reports. Pick a few and get hands-on: spin up an EC2 instance and write a CloudFormation template first.

Yes, but carefully. Use AI to draft diagrams, suggest components, or write boilerplate CloudFormation/Ansible snippets, then manually review everything for correctness and security. AI can hallucinate wrong resource names or risky defaults.

Never deploy AI-generated templates or code without validating them against your security checks and running tests for scalability, portability, and interoperability.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for 2025 covers roles in this area: about 435,370 employed. The median pay listed is $116,580 per year, the bottom tenth $55,940, and the top tenth $188,470. These are BLS numbers and represent a broad occupation group.

Actual pay varies by company, cloud experience (AWS, Ansible), and industry.

Start with core skills: learn Linux basics, networking, and a programming/scripting language (Python). Then get hands-on with AWS: create an EC2 instance, deploy a simple app, and write a CloudFormation template.

Learn one config tool (Ansible), one scheduler (Apache Airflow), and a database like Cassandra. Build small end-to-end projects so you can show you can design, implement, and test solutions.

The hardest skill is translating requirements into robust, testable system architecture — not just diagrams, but templates and scripts you can deploy. That means producing CloudFormation or Ansible artifacts that meet functional specs and pass tests for stability, security, and scalability.

Good architects also run hardware/software tests, troubleshoot issues, and communicate trade-offs clearly in reports or presentations.