VP, Solutions Architect - AWS

About the Position

VP, Solutions Architect - AWS

Location: US - Remote

Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. We're all in on AWS, combining deep UX capability with senior engineering talent to get AI into production fast and keep it there.

We’ve earned the trust of leaders across Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Manufacturing and more, and earned a reputation as the nimble alternative to traditional global systems integrators. Founded in 2009, with delivery centers in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design. Our teams average 15+ years of experience. We move fast, sweat the details, and build things that actually ship.

Responsibilities

Craft & Delivery

• Lead technical solutioning across the sales pipeline, turning qualified opportunities into complete, well-architected proposals that give the firm confidence to bid on increasingly complex enterprise deals.
• Architect AWS-native generative and agentic AI solutions using Amazon Bedrock, Bedrock AgentCore, AWS Strands Agents, and AgentCore Gateway, aligned to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, including the ML Lens.
• Design RAG, agentic RAG, and multi-agent orchestration architectures using AWS-native services such as Lambda, Step Functions, API Gateway, DynamoDB, Aurora (pgvector), and OpenSearch.
• Build simple proof-of-concepts and prototypes on AWS AI products, partnering with our engineering teams whenever a deal needs something tangible to show.
• Translate winning proposals into statements of work, work breakdown structures, and staffing plans that follow our AI SDLC, so what gets sold can be delivered and handed off cleanly to the engineering team picking up the engagement.
• Produce reference architectures, architecture decision records, and implementation roadmaps that our delivery teams can pick up and run with.
• Bring an AI-forward mindset to your own work, using tools like Claude and Claude Code to move faster through discovery, proposal writing, and architecture documentation.

Collaboration & Communication

• Serve as the primary technical partner to Client Partners, bringing the executive presence to sell R&P’s service lines and earn trust with customer C-level stakeholders.
• Act as a trusted advisor to customer executives shaping their long-term AI and technology roadmaps, translating ambiguity into a structured, credible path forward.
• Partner across R&P’s practices to make sure every proposal is well-rounded: technically sound, feasible to deliver, and backed by the right people.
• Lead architecture workshops, technical deep-dives, and discovery sessions that move a deal from opportunity to a scoped, confident solution.
• Communicate architecture, tradeoffs, and risk clearly to both engineering teams and executive audiences.

Leadership & Influence

• Build the culture and mechanics of solution architecture at R&P: the playbooks, frameworks, and reusable assets that let the practice scale as we grow to $100M in revenue.
• Own architectural integrity from the first proposal through the handoff to delivery, so what we sold is what gets built.
• Mentor engineers and future solutions architects, raising the technical bar across pre-sales and delivery.
• Represent R&P in the AWS ecosystem and broader market through conferences, forums, and thought leadership that build the firm’s reputation as an all-in-AWS partner.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering or architecture, with deep ownership of AWS environments.
• Deep expertise in Amazon Bedrock, Bedrock AgentCore, AWS Strands Agents, AgentCore Gateway, and the broader AWS AI/ML portfolio.
• Experience architecting RAG, multi-agent, and orchestration systems using AWS-native services.
• Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (AWS CDK, CloudFormation, or Terraform) and hands-on development in Python.
• Proven success leading pre-sales or solution architecture for complex, enterprise-scale AWS engagements.
• Exceptional communication skills.
• Experience in a consulting, systems integrator, or professional services environment.
• Demonstrable use of AI tools like Claude and Claude Code to move faster through discovery, prototyping, and documentation.

Nice to Have

• AWS Professional certifications preferred (AWS Solutions Architect – Professional).
• Exposure to data engineering services such as Glue, Redshift, and Lake Formation.

We Offer

• Competitive salary: USD 200,000 - 245,000 per year.
• Comprehensive benefits package including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, and 401(k).

About the Company

Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. We're all in on AWS, combining deep UX capability with senior engineering talent to get AI into production fast and keep it there.