Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Ellucian is a company that powers innovation for higher education, serving approximately 3,000 customers globally. They are seeking a Senior Solutions Architect to lead architectural delivery for complex higher education implementations, ensuring solutions are scalable and aligned with institutional outcomes.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the lead architect for large-scale, system-wide implementations spanning multiple schools/campuses and complex stakeholder environments
- Translate institutional goals into an executable architecture approach that balances outcomes, risk, cost, timeline, and long-term operability
- Establish architectural guardrails and decision frameworks; drive alignment across functional, technical, data, integration, reporting, and security workstreams
- Act as the architectural escalation point for complex delivery challenges and competing priorities
- Design and guide delivery of scalable end-to-end solutions across Ellucian products and platforms, maximizing configuration, extensibility, and SaaS best practices
- Ensure solution architecture aligns with customer goals, Ellucian product direction, and delivery standards—while remaining realistic and implementable
- Lead/guide architecture artifacts and reviews (e.g., solution architecture, integration architecture, environment approach, data and reporting strategy)
- Drive consistent adoption of delivery methodologies (Agile), tooling, and governance practices that improve predictability and quality
- Partner with Project Managers, delivery leaders, Product Owners, and Enterprise Architects to align plan, dependencies, resourcing, and execution approach
- Lead discovery and architecture design activities (including workshops), ensuring requirements, process alignment, and solution fit are fully understood
- Identify and mitigate delivery risks early (scope, complexity, integration, data readiness, change impacts), and support strong governance and decision-making
- Ensure solutions are implemented as designed, with appropriate traceability, quality controls, and readiness for go-live and sustained support
- Lead and coordinate a team of Solutions Architects on large programs, setting architectural direction, reviewing work products, and ensuring consistency
- Mentor and coach architects and cross-functional team members on standards, patterns, and delivery practices to raise overall capability and quality
- Promote a culture of collaboration, clarity, and accountability across distributed teams and stakeholders
- Provide strategic solutioning support during presales, including discovery, scoping, estimating, and solution approach input for proposals and statements of work
- Help articulate value, trade-offs, and ROI to executive stakeholders, grounding recommendations in institutional outcomes and delivery reality
- Contribute to and help evolve Ellucian’s global architecture repository through reference architectures, patterns, templates, playbooks, and governance frameworks
- Identify repeatable delivery improvements and create reusable assets that accelerate execution, reduce risk, and improve client experience
- Share lessons learned and best practices through communities of practice, enablement content, and coaching—scaling impact beyond individual projects
Skills
- 10+ years of solution architecture and delivery experience in consulting or professional services, including leadership on large, complex programs
- Demonstrated success leading enterprise or system-wide higher education implementations across multiple schools/campuses or complex governance structures
- Deep expertise across higher education enterprise domains (preferably Ellucian), such as Student Information Systems (SIS), Finance, HR, and adjacent ecosystems
- Strong technical and functional fluency in SaaS architectures, ERP ecosystems, integrations, data migration, reporting/analytics, and security considerations
- Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive alignment across stakeholders with competing priorities—while maintaining delivery momentum
- Exceptional communication skills with the ability to convey complex concepts to technical teams and executive audiences with clarity and confidence
- Strong customer presence; skilled at building trust, facilitating workshops, driving decisions, and navigating ambiguity in high-visibility programs
- A practical, outcomes-oriented approach to architecture—balancing 'what's ideal' with 'what will work' to deliver measurable results
Benefits
- Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision
- Flexible time off
- Thrive Flex Lifestyle Account (LSA) that allows you to contribute towards your health, financial or learning interests
- 401k w/ match & BrightPlan - to help you save for the future
- Parental Leave
- 5 charitable days to support the community that supports us
- Telemedicine
- Wellness
- Headspace Care (mental health)
- Wellbeats (virtual fitness classes)
- RethinkCare & Wellthy– caregiver support
- Diversity and inclusion programs which provide access to internal employee resource groups
- Employee referral bonuses to encourage the addition of great new people to the team
- We Foster a learning culture with:
- Education Assistance Program
- Professional development opportunities
- LinkedIn Learning
Company Overview
Ellucian delivers the software, services, and insights that help your institution thrive. It was founded in 1968, and is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, USA, with a workforce of 1001-5000 employees. Its website is http://www.ellucian.com.Company H1B Sponsorship
Ellucian has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 2 in 2026, 31 in 2025, 27 in 2024, 28 in 2023, 31 in 2022, 33 in 2021, 30 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.