An AI solutions architect designs how a customer will run an AI or data product, from the first technical call to a working architecture, and the live catalogue holds 1,659 solutions architect postings at 174 companies, 71 of them building AI systems outright. Measured October 2026.
The number this article rests on: 71 of 1,659 live solutions architect postings (4.3%) build AI systems outright, where that is the job. Measured October 2026.
One caveat shapes everything below. Level collects AI-related jobs, but a solutions architect title does not always contain the word AI. Level rates each posting from Little AI (AI absent from the work, or only decorative) to Builds AI (AI Level 4), so the rating, not the title, tells you which of these jobs are AI architecture work. The figures cover titles containing "solutions architect", "solution architect", or "AI architect", and a separate count for "solutions engineer".
What does an AI solutions architect do?
An AI solutions architect turns a customer's goal into a design the product can deliver: which data goes where, which model runs on it, and what changes in the customer's stack. Employers file the role under sales (1,095), software engineering (451), and no specific category (80), placing the architect mostly in the account team. Measured October 2026.
The day splits between discovery calls, architecture documents, proofs of concept, and the hand-off to the team that implements. On the AI side, the rating shows how much of that involves models: 71 postings that build AI, 819 that use or work on AI, and 769 with little AI, where AI is absent from the work or only decorative.
The employers posting the most are Amazon (540), Databricks (180), NVIDIA (158), Anthropic (37), and MongoDB (37).
How much does an AI solutions architect make?
On the ranges employers publish, the median solutions architect posting publishes a range from $169,000 to $239,000, on 616 live postings with a USD salary. The market-wide median maximum is $200,000 on 44,243 USD postings, so the role sits above it. Measured October 2026.
Seniority weighs on that figure: 1,395 of the 1,659 postings are tagged senior or lead, and the median senior solutions architect posting publishes a range from $169,000 to $239,000, on 524 live postings with a USD salary. Posted ranges are base pay; commission and equity are rarely printed. For the engineering benchmark, see the AI engineer salary guide.
AI solutions engineer vs AI solutions architect: what is the difference?
A solutions engineer proves the product works for one customer, usually through demos and proofs of concept; a solutions architect designs how it will run at scale. The catalogue holds 768 live solutions engineer postings against 1,659 for solutions architect. Measured October 2026.
Both titles live in the same team, and the filing shows it: solutions engineers are spread across sales (454), software engineering (302), and marketing (4). On pay, the median solutions engineer posting publishes a range from $165,000 to $220,000, on 263 live postings with a USD salary. Among solutions engineer postings, 11 of 768 (1.4%) build AI outright, against 4.3% for architects.
The employers posting the most solutions engineer roles are Cisco (119), Salesforce (84), Snowflake (42), and Netskope (26). In practice the two titles often overlap, and a company may use one where another uses the other, so read the responsibilities rather than the label.
Are AI solutions architect jobs remote?
The postings give a clear split: 604 of 1,659 live solutions architect postings (36.4%) are remote, and 327 of 768 solutions engineer postings (42.6%) are too. On pay, the median remote solutions architect posting publishes a range from $180,000 to $247,500, on 210 live postings with a USD salary. Measured October 2026.
Remote here means the posting says so. Customer visits are part of many of these jobs, and ads rarely quantify them.
How do I become an AI solutions architect?
Start from a technical role and add customer work: live solutions architect postings tagged intern or junior number 29, against 1,395 tagged senior or lead. The common routes are software engineering, data engineering, and the solutions engineer role described above. Measured October 2026.
What the postings that build AI add is hands-on model work: retrieval, evaluation, and deployment on real customer data. A closely related path is the forward deployed engineer, with 727 live postings, who implements what the architect designs. The list of AI job types maps the rest of the field.
The jobs right now
Live solutions architect postings, newest first, generated from the catalogue. Check each posting's level to see how much AI it involves.
