Founding Solutions Architect

Catio • Palo Alto, CA

36d

About The Position

Coding AI IDEs reinvented how software is written. Catio is reinventing how software is decided and governed. This is critical in an AI-first environment.

Catio is the Architecture IDE — the control plane for modern software. It gives engineering leaders the system-level intelligence they’ve always lacked. While Coding AI IDEs like Claude Code and Cursor turbocharge coding, the real bottleneck is now upstream: deciding what to build, what to modernize, and how to move fast with architectural confidence. That’s where Catio comes in.

Our AI platform builds a living architecture model from production reality, aligns business and product goals with technical context, and uses our reasoning agent — Archie — to generate decision-grade insights, strategic modernization and optimization plans, and execution-ready feature specs and designs. Catio amplifies architects and engineering leaders the way coding copilots amplify developers. See this Demo.

Backed by world-class investors like Eniac Ventures and RRE, and advised by leading enterprise technology operators from Dropbox, Akamai, Databricks, and Cerner, Catio is partnering with hyperscalers and visionary enterprises to define a new category in software and infrastructure.
The Role
We’re hiring our Founding Solutions Architect to create the technical backbone of Catio’s commercial motion. This is a foundational role — you’ll lead architecture discovery, design and execute proof-of-value engagements, and help guide the first successful customer implementations that validate an entirely new product category.
This role goes beyond traditional pre-sales. You will work end-to-end with customers — from initial architecture discovery through proof-of-value and into real production outcomes. Your job is to establish deep technical trust, translate complex environments into decision-grade artifacts, and ensure early customers achieve meaningful results with Catio in their real systems.
This is a PLS-first, sales-assisted motion: P2–P4 technical users (architects, tech leads, staff+ engineers) will often enter through self-serve “Free Stacks.” Your job is to rapidly establish technical credibility, convert usage and intent signals into decision-grade proof, and help the AE multi-thread to P1 (CTO/VPE/platform leadership) with clear success criteria and a credible path to production.
You’ll work alongside CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Principal Architects, and platform teams at enterprises and high-growth technology companies. The technical engagement is deep and consultative — you’ll map complex production environments, surface architectural trade-offs, structure modernization discussions, and guide early implementations that demonstrate Catio’s value within real customer systems.
You’ll partner directly with the AE and CEO, with the product and engineering team close at hand. Your insights from real-world deployments will shape product direction, implementation patterns, and the architectural playbooks that power Catio’s long-term GTM engine.
This role blends pre-sales architecture validation, forward-deployed problem solving, and early customer delivery. If you’ve helped enterprise teams adopt complex infrastructure or AI platforms — and enjoy turning ambiguous problems into working systems — you’ll be set up to make an outsized impact.

Requirements

• Demonstrable experience in Solutions Architecture, Sales Engineering, Forward-Deployed Engineering, or Technical Consulting within high-growth SaaS, infrastructure, AI/ML, DevTools, or cloud-native environments
• Experience operating across both technical validation and delivery, taking ambiguous problems from framing → plan → production outcome
• Experience supporting complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise sales cycles as the technical authority alongside an AE or sales leader
• Demonstrated success leading proof-of-value or pilot engagements that converted into production deployments and closed enterprise deals
• Hands-on experience integrating platforms into enterprise systems — APIs, cloud providers, orchestration layers, CI/CD pipelines, data platforms
• Experience operating in early-stage or founder-led environments where solution frameworks and technical playbooks were still being built
• Exposure to modern data, cloud, AI-native, and infrastructure ecosystems (hyperscalers, data platforms, container orchestration, developer infrastructure)

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture discovery with technical prospects and customers to map production realities — topology, dependencies, constraints, and modernization goals
• Translate ambiguous technical problems into clear evaluation plans, success criteria, and actionable next steps
• Design and execute repeatable proof-of-value engagements that validate Catio in real customer environments
• Create decision-grade artifacts — architecture summaries, risk/trade-off analyses, modernization plans, and credible paths to production
• Work alongside customer teams to deliver the first successful outcomes with Catio, embedding when needed to ensure real impact
• Partner with Account Executives to multi-thread complex deals and elevate engagement to executive sponsors (CTO, VPE, platform leadership)
• Build and standardize scaling assets — reference architectures, POV templates, demo environments, and integration/security frameworks
• Codify learnings from early customer engagements into repeatable playbooks and architectural patterns
• Feed high-fidelity insights from customer work back into Catio’s product, discovery frameworks, and architectural methodology
• Help shape how Catio is deployed, validated, and adopted across modern enterprise software environments

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed