Lead Specialist, Solution Architect

Lead Specialist, Solution Architect - OnVUE 

About OnVUE 

OnVUE is Pearson’s online proctored test delivery platform, supporting the secure, reliable, and scalable delivery of assessments for Pearson’s certification and professional testing business. The platform enables candidates to test remotely while maintaining exam integrity through identity verification, monitoring, secure delivery workflows, and operational controls. The OnVUE environment includes modern and legacy systems, with ongoing focus on platform modernization, service resilience, API-first integration, cloud-native delivery, candidate and proctor experience, and improved developer and operational practices. 

Role summary 

As a Lead Specialist, Solution Architect, you are a recognized subject-matter expert who provides technical leadership for sophisticated, high-impact solution work. You independently translate business needs, stakeholder constraints, and technical requirements into secure, scalable, viable, and maintainable architectural models and guide solution delivery from inception through implementation. 

You maintain technical consistency within the assigned scope, balance advanced solution design with hands-on support for complex delivery challenges, and resolve day-to-day integration and build issues. You influence through depth of knowledge, sound judgment, clear communication, and the ability to steer architecture discussions toward practical outcomes. You mentor engineers, junior architects, and peers, establish trusted technical patterns within your domain, ensure conformance to established frameworks, and escalate decisions that materially exceed the assigned scope to senior experts. 

Key responsibilities 

Solution architecture and technical leadership 

• Translate business needs, stakeholder constraints, and technical requirements into robust architectural models and fit-for-purpose solution designs. 

• Own solution architecture from discovery and design through implementation and production adoption. 

• Provide technical leadership for high-impact projects, major features, product changes, services, domains, or business capabilities. 

• Maintain technical consistency within the assigned product, service, project, domain, or broader solution footprint. 

• Evaluate and communicate tradeoffs involving scalability, security, resilience, maintainability, integration, delivery risk, operational needs, and business value. 

Implementation and delivery guidance 

• Guide engineering and delivery teams through implementation while preserving architectural intent. 

• Resolve complex architectural, integration, and build issues within the assigned scope. 

• Consult on technical feasibility for major features, updates, integrations, and solution approaches. 

• Identify high-stakes architectural risks early and coordinate practical mitigation. 

• Adapt architecture to changing requirements without sacrificing solution stability, security, or long-term maintainability. 

Standards, influence, and capability building 

• Establish trusted and repeatable technical patterns within the assigned domain while ensuring conformance with established architecture frameworks, standards, and guidelines. 

• Participate in architecture forums and guide discussions toward sound, practical outcomes. 

• Mentor engineers, junior architects, and peers in solution design, technical practices, and architectural decision-making. 

• Communicate design options, recommendations, constraints, and tradeoffs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders. 

• Escalate decisions outside the assigned scope or requiring senior technical or enterprise direction. 

Required education and experience 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience. 

• Progressive experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or a related technical discipline. 

• Demonstrated experience designing sophisticated solutions and guiding delivery from inception through implementation. 

• Experience translating business needs and technical constraints into secure, scalable, maintainable architecture. 

• Experience influencing architecture and delivery outcomes without formal authority. 

Desired knowledge, skills, and abilities 

• Strong solution architecture, system design, integration, and technical problem-solving skills. 

• Ability to evaluate solution options and explain tradeoffs across business value, delivery feasibility, risk, and long-term technology health. 

• Working knowledge of Java-based enterprise application stacks, cloud-native design, APIs, microservices, event-driven integration, containers, orchestration, CI/CD, observability, security, data consistency, and operational readiness. 

• Practical familiarity with service decomposition, API gateway patterns, versioned API contracts, distributed tracing, messaging, data-driven backend systems, and headless or decoupled front-end and back-end architecture patterns. 

• Strong documentation, facilitation, communication, and influencing skills. 

• Ability to mentor others and introduce trusted, repeatable technical approaches. 

Success measures 

• Architecture artifacts are clear, fit for purpose, timely, and enable secure, scalable, stable implementation. 

• Solution designs are adopted successfully, integrate effectively, and remain durable in production. 

• Design choices minimize avoidable rework, support business continuity, and reduce preventable technical risk. 

• Technical blockers and high-stakes architectural risks are identified and resolved or escalated in time to protect delivery. 

• Documentation and quality standards are met with limited revision cycles. 

• Repeatable technical approaches, mentorship, and knowledge transfer improve team effectiveness. 

• Stakeholders trust the role to explain design options, constraints, and tradeoffs and to guide solution delivery. 

Leadership behaviors 

• Customer Centricity — Tailors architecture decisions to real operational and business needs and responds quickly when issues threaten outcomes. 

• Raise the Performance Bar — Applies advanced design techniques, strengthens technical practices, and shares approaches that improve solution quality. 

• Exceptional Collaboration for Value — Guides technical discussions, incorporates different perspectives, and supports alignment and integration across the assigned scope. 

• Our Leaders Inspire — Models technical curiosity, sound judgment, visible accountability, and a commitment to developing others.