Principal Solution Architect

About us

Every day, we deliver safe and secure energy to homes, communities, and businesses, connecting people to the energy they need for their lives. Our expertise and track record position us uniquely to shape the sustainable future of our industry as the pace of change accelerates. To succeed, we must anticipate customer needs, reduce energy delivery costs, and pioneer flexible energy systems.

This requires delivering on our promises and seeking opportunities for growth.

In IT and Digital, we collaborate closely with the diverse energy businesses within the National Grid group, revolutionizing operations through technology. Embracing modern methodologies and digital mindsets, we drive efficiency and bring new capabilities to internal and external customers as we lead the charge toward a carbon‑free future.

Our work is critical, as National Grid powers millions of homes and businesses across the UK and US, and the technology we employ is vital to this task. The successful applicant for this position will play a crucial role in our mission, supported by our multicultural, customer‑centric global team, with opportunities for professional development.

This role operates under a hybrid working model and is based out of our Waltham, MA, or the Brooklyn, NY office. Hybrid work expectations are subject to business needs and company policy.

The Principal Architect, Solution is a senior authority within Solution Architecture, accountable for setting direction, shaping complex end‑to‑end solution architectures, and providing authoritative design leadership across I&O customer initiatives. The role operates across business units, product teams, platform teams, Enterprise Architecture, cyber security, delivery partners, and senior stakeholders to translate strategic priorities and business outcomes into coherent, secure, resilient, scalable, supportable, and commercially balanced solution designs.

The role is expected to lead architecture decision‑making, resolve cross‑domain design ambiguity, assure solution quality, and ensure alignment to enterprise standards, reusable patterns, technology strategy, and the long‑term evolution of I&O platforms and services.

1. Senior Solution Architecture Leadership Across I&O Customer Solutions

• Lead solution architecture activity for complex business unit initiatives that depend on I&O platforms, services, and technical capabilities.
• Cloud, hosting, infrastructure, network, workplace, and collaboration platforms
• Identity, security, integration, observability, automation, and operational tooling
• Service management, resilience, continuity, support, and run‑operate capabilities
• Data, AI, and platform engineering capabilities consumed by business products
• Provide authoritative cross‑domain design leadership, challenging assumptions and resolving architectural trade‑offs that affect business outcomes, platform adoption, operational performance, resilience, cyber risk, and cost.
• Own and assure end‑to‑end solution architecture, ensuring business products are designed coherently across I&O platforms, application teams, security, data, integration, suppliers, and operational support models.

2. Strategic Customer Requirements, I&O Capabilities & Solution Shaping

• Lead the interpretation of customer requirements and product needs, shaping solution options that make strategic and effective use of I&O platform capabilities.
• Translate business unit priorities, product requirements, regulatory considerations, enterprise architecture direction, and technology strategy into authoritative solution recommendations and design decisions.
• Align:
  • I&O platform evolution with business product needs
  • Solution architecture standards, reusable patterns, and platform consumption models
  • Investment decisions that improve delivery speed, resilience, security, cost transparency, and operational simplicity
• Continuously evolve roadmaps based on:
  • Business product demand and platform consumption trends
  • Emerging technologies and industry direction
  • Operational experience, service performance, security posture, and platform reliability metrics
• Act as a senior voice of solution architecture into…