Solution Architect
Our engineering team ensures Code and Theory delivers innovative, immersive web experiences that delight our clients and their customers. We are always striving to balance the demanding nature of working on cutting-edge technologies with the real-world demands of high performance, high security, and accessibility. Working in collaboration with our multi-disciplinary engineering, design, and quality assurance teams, you will build software that solves real-world problems for incredible clients. This role sits within our Adobe practice, where we design and build enterprise content and experience platforms for global brands. Our AEM work increasingly spans modern frontend stacks including React and NextJS, and integrates with the wider Adobe Experience Cloud ecosystem.
In this role you will partner with cross-functional teams to shape the right technical solution and then drive its execution (50/50), balancing architectural integrity against delivery reality.
WHAT YOU’LL DO:
Architecture:
- Own the solution blueprint end to end for your engagements — current-state assessment, target architecture, integration design, and the sequencing roadmap to get there.
- Lead architecture reviews and technical governance, ensuring scalable, secure, enterprise-grade implementations.
- Run technical discovery and requirements workshops with clients, translating business problems into AEM-based architectures.
- Define how AEM fits within the client's wider enterprise ecosystem — integration patterns across CRM, commerce, search, analytics, identity and data platforms.
- Evaluate and defend architectural trade-offs — headless versus hybrid, EDS versus AEMaaCS, build versus configure — to both technical and business stakeholders.
- Produce architecture documentation, diagrams and decision records that the delivery team and the client can both work from.
- Support pre-sales and pursuit work: technical solutioning, effort estimation, staffing shape and scope definition.
Delivery:
- Own delivery accountability for your engagements: sprint planning, release management, dependency tracking, risk identification and escalation.
- Ensure predictable, high-quality, on-time and on-budget execution against committed scope.
- Produce and defend delivery estimates; manage scope change and change requests with the client.
- Report delivery status, risks and trade-offs directly to client stakeholders.
- Partner with Delivery and Resourcing on staffing plans, capacity forecasting and utilization.
- Run delivery governance — quality gates, definition of done, and release readiness.
General:
- Lead and grow a high-performing team of engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, innovation, continuous learning, and engineering excellence.
- Drive the delivery of scalable, secure, and maintainable products while balancing technical quality, business impact, and speed of execution.
- Actively participate in architecture, system design, code reviews, and critical technical decision-making, serving as a technical leader for the team.
- Remain genuinely hands-on in code — proofs of concept, framework and foundation code, complex components, and unblocking the team on hard problems — while recognising you will not be the primary implementer at this level.
- Champion AI-enabled software development practices, leveraging tools such as Claude, Cursor, and Vercel/V0 to improve productivity, quality, and developer experience.
- Continuously evaluate and introduce modern engineering practices, tools, automations, and workflows that enhance team effectiveness and accelerate delivery.
- Mentor and coach engineers through hands-on guidance, technical leadership, and helping them grow their technical and problem-solving capabilities.
- Partner closely with Product, Design, Architecture, and other cross-functional stakeholders to align engineering efforts with strategic business outcomes.
- Build and scale global engineering teams through hiring, performance management, and fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and high-accountability culture.
- Establish and uphold engineering standards around architecture, testing, CI/CD, observability, security, and operational excellence.
- Represent the engineering team with senior leadership, customers, and partners, effectively communicating technical strategy, progress, risks, and opportunities.
- Lead engineering delivery across AEM implementations — Sites, Assets, Forms, and Headless — including AEM as a Cloud Service and Edge Delivery Services builds.
- Own technical execution on complex CMS migrations, including legacy AEM to AEMaaCS/EDS and third-party CMS platforms into the Adobe ecosystem.
- Own the solution blueprint and hold the delivery team accountable to architectural intent.
- Partner with Multi-Solution Architects where engagements extend into the wider Adobe stack.
- Guide integration of AEM with the broader Adobe Experience Cloud stack and enterprise third-party systems (CRM, commerce, search, analytics, identity/SSO).
Required Experience & Skills:
- Total 12–15 years of IT experience, including 5+ years in a senior technical leadership role spanning architecture and delivery — as a Solution Architect, Technical Lead, or Engineering Manager — with a proven track record as a Lead/Senior Engineer prior to that.
- 5+ years of hands-on Adobe Experience Manager engineering, including AEM Sites and Assets, with recent experience on AEM as a Cloud Service.
- Demonstrated experience owning solution architecture for enterprise AEM engagements - not just implementing someone else's design.
- Experience producing delivery estimates, scope documents and staffing plans, and defending them when scope shifts.
- Track record of delivering multi-workstream engagements on time and on budget, with direct client accountability for status and risk.
- Experience running architecture reviews and technical governance across concurrent engagements.
- Strong hands-on Java and AEM core development: Apache Sling, Sling Models, OSGi bundles and services, HTL/Sightly, JCR, workflows, schedulers, and event handlers.
- Experience with Edge Delivery Services, or demonstrable AEM depth plus a credible path to ramping quickly.
- Proven experience leading at least one large-scale CMS migration or AEMaaCS modernization end to end.
- Hands-on experience with Adobe Cloud Manager CI/CD pipelines, dispatcher configuration, caching strategy, and AEM performance tuning.
- Experience delivering AEM in a client-services, agency, or consulting context — including scoping, estimation, and direct client communication.
- Mandatory current experience in hands-on coding in the above technologies and beyond.
- Strong experience working with headless content delivery patterns, including AEM Headless (Content Fragments, GraphQL APIs) and third-party headless CMS platforms such as Contentful, Sanity, or ContentStack.
- Experience working in modern client-services or agency delivery environments, embracing iterative delivery, rapid feedback loops, and outcome-driven execution across concurrent client engagements.
AI-Enabled Engineering Leadership (Mandatory)
- Demonstrated expertise in AI-assisted software development is mandatory.
- Extensive hands-on experience using AI engineering tools such as Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or equivalent platforms to accelerate software delivery, architecture design, debugging, code reviews, testing, documentation, and developer productivity.
- Hands-on experience developing agents, sub-agents, workflow orchestration and automation with agents.
- Proven ability to effectively integrate Agentic Engineering into day-to-day engineering workflows and establish best practices for AI-enhanced processes across teams.
- Experience evaluating, adopting, and driving emerging AI technologies and engineering practices within an organization.
- Ability to mentor engineers on AI-native development approaches and foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation.
- Candidates should be comfortable demonstrating practical AI-assisted problem-solving during the interview process through live coding, system design, and development exercises — which may be set in an AEM or headless CMS context.
Leadership & Innovation (Mandatory)
- Demonstrated past experience in directly managing teams of engineers, and strong people management skills, including performance reviews, compensation management.
- Strong communicator capable of representing engineering teams to internal and external stakeholders with varying levels of technical expertise.
- Passion for challenging conventional approaches and driving adoption of new tools, workflows, and engineering practices that improve outcomes.
- Ability to build high-performing teams by fostering innovation, experimentation, ownership, and accountability.
- Experience leading engineering teams across concurrent client engagements, balancing competing priorities and client expectations without compromising engineering standards.
Engineering Excellence (Mandatory)
- Proven ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, and cross-functional initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
- Strong problem-solving, debugging, performance optimization, and decision-making skills.
- Demonstrated ability to continuously improve engineering quality, delivery velocity, developer experience, and operational efficiency.
- Active involvement in system design, architecture reviews, coding, code reviews, release management, and operational excellence.
- Experience establishing engineering standards, development workflows, and best practices that improve team effectiveness and software quality.
- Flexible, adaptable, and able to thrive in rapidly evolving technology environments.
- Experience with authentication and access patterns in enterprise CMS contexts — OAuth, SAML, SSO, LDAP.
- Experience with automated testing in a CMS context, including component-level, integration, and end-to-end testing across authoring and publish environments.
NICE TO HAVE:
- Experience designing, deploying, and operating cloud-native applications on platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
- Familiarity with modern engineering productivity, collaboration, and delivery platforms such as Jira, Linear, DevOps, or similar tools.
- Experience leading distributed teams and collaborating effectively with stakeholders across global regions, particularly North America and LATAM
- Experience driving platform modernization, developer experience improvements, or large-scale digital transformation initiatives.
- Familiarity with the wider Adobe Experience Cloud: Adobe Analytics, Target, Experience Platform (AEP), Real-Time CDP, Journey Optimizer, or Campaign.
- Exposure to Adobe Workfront and Adobe Fusion for marketing workflow and automation.
- Familiarity with Adobe GenStudio, Firefly Services, or AI-assisted content supply chain workflows.
- Experience implementing personalization, experimentation, or audience segmentation on top of a content platform.
- Adobe certifications — Adobe Certified Expert/Master (AEM Sites Architect), Adobe Certified Professional (AEM Sites or Assets Developer), or equivalent.
- Experience integrating AEM with commerce platforms or enterprise search.
ABOUT US
Born in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve. With a remote-first approach to our people, we have teams distributed across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Instrument, Left Field Labs, Mediacurrent, Rhythm, and TrueLogic.
Striving never to be pigeonholed, we work across every major category: from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education to media and publishing. We value the collaboration with our client partners, including but not limited to Adidas, Amazon, Con Edison, Diageo, EY, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lenovo, Marriott, Mars, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and TikTok.
The Code and Theory network comprises nearly 2,000 people with 50% engineers and 50% creative talent. We’re always on the lookout for smart, driven, and forward-thinking people to join our team.