Account Solution Architect

Our client is a global leader in passenger information systems — the displays, on-board computers, and real-time data platforms that tell millions of passengers when their bus, tram, or train arrives, in vehicles and terminals across Europe and North America. Having grown through multiple acquisitions across Europe, the client now operates a mixed landscape: transit fleets running hardware and backend systems from different acquired vendors — some brand new, some deeply legacy. Their strategic goal is to consolidate everything onto one unified cloud platform capable of managing both new and legacy systems, without disrupting vehicles in daily service. The first engagement is the migration of a legacy real-time transit system to the unified platform: re-implementing industry data protocols (real-time vehicle feeds, timetable imports, on-board device communication) as cloud services. More migration and modernization initiatives of similar shape will follow — this role is designed to lead them. We are looking for Solutions Architect to become the long-term technical owner of this account at N-iX — not a per-project consultant. Requests from the client are often broad or abstract ("we need to migrate this system") and the concrete scope has to be discovered: investigate the legacy landscape, define what actually needs to be done, shape it into a roadmap and technical backlog, then guide delivery. This makes the role as much about bridging the business and technical worlds as about architecture itself: you'll translate business intent into technical direction and technical reality back into business language the client's leadership can act on. You will build and hold a holistic, cross-project view of the client's ecosystem — how their platforms, legacy systems, and initiatives interconnect — becoming the ultimate knowledge holder on the N-iX side and the client's trusted technical counterpart. As the current project completes, you will carry that context into the next initiatives and act as the technical driver of the whole account. Technology landscape: the legacy systems to be migrated are written mostly in C# and C++ (with Java present elsewhere in the client's ecosystem); the target platform is built in Python on Azure, with an MQTT-centric, event-driven architecture. You won't be supporting the legacy code — you'll be reading and dissecting it to migrate it. Responsibilities: Own solution architecture across the account: from ambiguous requests to investigated scope, target architecture, roadmap, and estimated technical backlog Lead technical discovery of legacy systems and define migration strategies to the target platform Act as the client's primary technical counterpart: workshops, architectural decisions, trade-off discussions with their engineering leadership and domain experts Guide the development team day to day: architecture and code reviews, technical standards, unblocking design decisions; hands-on coding when it matters most (PoCs, critical components) Own and maintain system documentation: architecture decisions, protocol specifications, and migration knowledge — kept current as delivery reveals gaps, so account knowledge lives in artifacts, not only in heads Safeguard the integrity of the overall platform architecture (event-driven, MQTT as the single source of truth, adapter-based integrations) across teams and initiatives Identify risks, dependencies, and opportunities across projects; feed them into account planning together with delivery and engagement managers Drive AI adoption & strategic application: Proactively identify high-ROI opportunities across the engagement where AI tools can accelerate discovery, reverse-engineering, and delivery; advise client stakeholders and N-iX teams on where, when, and how to deploy AI safely and effectively Requirements: 8+ years in software engineering, 3+ years in a solution architect / tech lead role on complex backend or integration-heavy systems Proven experience leading legacy modernization / platform migration programs, including working with codebases you didn't write A software engineer's mindset rather than a single-language identity: we're not looking for "a C# engineer" or "a Python engineer," but someone ready to deep-dive into unfamiliar legacy codebases (C#, C++, Java) for migration purposes and design their replacements in the target stack (Python) Proven experience as a bridge between business and engineering: comfortable in front of C-level and product stakeholders as much as in a codebase, able to drive decisions on both sides Hands-on AI-augmented workflow & advocacy: Proven personal track record of integrating AI tools into your daily engineering practice, with the initiative and credibility to champion AI adoption across development teams, set standards and review guardrails, and mentor engineers on getting the most out of AI assistance. Strong architectural background: distributed systems, event-driven design, message brokers (MQTT/Kafka/similar), REST APIs, cloud-native services (Azure preferred) Kubernetes/Docker and infrastructure-as-code (the client uses Pulumi); comfort owning deployment without a dedicated DevOps team Strong requirements-engineering skills: able to turn vague, abstract client asks into investigated, prioritized, estimable scope Excellent client-facing communication; experience as the technical point of contact for a customer account Upper-Intermediate+ English level Nice to have: Domain experience with transit/mobility data standards (GTFS/GTFS-RT, SIRI, VDV, TransXChange) or other real-time telemetry/IoT systems Experience with embedded or on-board device communication (UDP protocols, constrained devices) Experience with performance/load engineering for high-throughput ingestion (thousands of messages/sec) We offer*: Flexible working format - remote, office-based or flexible A competitive salary and good compensation package Personalized career growth Professional development tools (mentorship program, tech talks and trainings, centers of excellence, and more) Active tech communities with regular knowledge sharing Education reimbursement Memorable anniversary presents Corporate events and team buildings Other location-specific benefits *not applicable for freelancers