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Location
Hybrid (Johannesburg, South Africa)
Seniority
Architect · 7+ years exp

Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 29, 2026. First seen by Alion on Jun 26, 2026. IQbusiness scores B on the Alion truth index.

Overview
Company
Impact
Profile match
IQbusiness is a Johannesburg management and technology consultancy founded in 1998. It advises South African banks, insurers and retailers on data, digital delivery and process change, and supplies contract specialists. The firm is one of the country's largest independent consulting businesses.

We are recruiting an AI Solutions Architect to lead the design and delivery of enterprise-grade AI and Generative AI solutions across cloud platforms, with a strong emphasis on production deployment, business value and consulting-led delivery.

This role sits at the intersection of:

  • Solution architecture (end-to-end systems design)
  • AI engineering (capability awareness, not hands-on build ownership)
  • Consulting (client engagement, commercial alignment, pre-sales)

The successful candidate will translate complex business problems into scalable AI architectures, lead multidisciplinary teams, and ensure AI solutions are aligned to enterprise systems, governance, and measurable outcomes.

Role Context & Positioning:

  • Senior member of the AI & Data capability working across multiple client engagements
  • Acts as the bridge between AI engineering, architecture, and business stakeholders
  • Owns solution design, architecture governance and delivery oversight
  • Plays a key role in pre-sales, client shaping, and capability development

Responsibilities:

AI Solution Architecture & Design

  • Lead the design of end-to-end AI architectures across data, application and integration layers
    • Design solutions spanning:
    • Generative AI (LLMs, RAG, agents)
    • Document intelligence and automation
    • Enterprise AI platforms and APIs
  • Define:
    • Data flow, integration patterns, and system architecture
    • Retrieval, orchestration and agent interaction patterns
    • Security, governance and deployment architectures

Client Advisory & Solution Shaping

  • Lead discovery workshops and use case definition sessions
  • Translate business problems into AI-enabled solutions and architecture blueprints
  • Advise clients on:
    • AI adoption roadmaps
    • Architecture approaches (build vs buy vs hybrid)
    • Trade-offs, risks, and ROI

Delivery Leadership

  • Own architecture across delivery lifecycle:
    • Discovery → design → build oversight → deployment → optimisation
  • Guide engineering teams on:
    • Architecture decisions
    • Design patterns and best practice
  • Ensure:
    • Production-grade delivery
    • Alignment to enterprise systems and constraints

Cloud AI Architecture

  • Architect solutions across at least one hyperscaler (Azure preferred), including:
    • Azure OpenAI, AI Foundry, AI Search, Document Intelligence
    • Equivalent AWS (Bedrock) or GCP (Vertex AI) services
  • Define:
    • Deployment patterns (APIs, microservices, serverless)
    • Integration into enterprise ecosystems
    • Security, networking and governance models

Data & AI Platform Design

  • Design data foundations required for AI:
    • Data pipelines, ingestion patterns, storage and modelling
    • Vector databases, embeddings and retrieval strategies
  • Ensure:
    • Data quality, lineage, and governance alignment
    • AI-readiness of enterprise data platforms

Pre-Sales & Commercial Contribution

  • Support and lead:
    • Solution design for proposals and RFPs
    • Estimation, costing and effort modelling
  • Contribute to:
    • Client pitches and demos
    • Opportunity shaping and deal conversion

Capability Building & Thought Leadership

  • Develop:
    • Reference architectures and reusable solution patterns
  • Mentor:
    • Engineers and consultants
  • Contribute to:
    • Internal capability development and AI maturity

Requirements

Consulting & Leadership

  • 7-12+ years in technology, data or solution architecture
  • 3-5+ years in consulting / client-facing architecture roles
  • Proven experience:
    • Leading AI or data engagements
    • Managing multidisciplinary teams
    • Engaging senior stakeholders and executives

AI & Generative AI

  • Practical experience designing solutions involving:
    • LLMs and Generative AI applications
    • RAG architectures and retrieval systems
    • AI agents / orchestration patterns
  • Strong understanding of:
    • Prompting, evaluation and guardrails
    • Enterprise AI use cases and limitations

Solution Architecture

  • Strong experience designing:
    • Distributed systems and microservice architectures
    • API-driven integrations
    • Enterprise-scale cloud solutions
  • Ability to clearly articulate architecture decisions and trade-offs

Cloud (At least one CSP, Azure preferred)

  • Azure (preferred): OpenAI, AI Foundry, Synapse, Data Lake, App Services
  • AWS: Bedrock, Lambda, S3
  • GCP: Vertex AI, Cloud Run

Data & AI Platform Understanding

  • Strong grounding in:
    • Data engineering concepts (pipelines, modelling, lakehouse)
    • AI system data flows (embeddings, chunking, indexing)
  • Experience designing AI-ready data ecosystems

Business & Communication

  • Ability to:
    • Translate technical designs into business outcomes
    • Communicate with C-suite and architecture boards
  • Strong commercial acumen and delivery mindset

Please Note:

As all iqbusiness roles require honesty in the handling of or access to cash, finances, financial systems, or confidential information; our recruitment process requires that the following background checks be completed: credit, criminal, ID, and qualification verification

iqbusiness is committed to sustainable growth and transformation, we embrace diversity and employ previously disadvantaged individuals

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