The Solution Architect at ryd is the bridge between ryd's integration platform and the partner's reality. You analyze a partner's system, select and adapt the best integration approach, and draft the architecture that makes the integration work. You collaborate closely with the System Architect to improve ryd's integration approaches based on real-world experience. You are the person who makes integration happen — for a fintech, a fleet SaaS, an ERP, or an automotive OEM.
You work closely with partner-facing teams (business development, partner success, product) and engineering teams.
Core Responsibilities
1. Analyze Partner Systems
Conduct technical discovery with partners — understand their tech stack, architecture, APIs, authentication model, data requirements, and constraints.
Map the partner's business goals to technical integration requirements.
Identify potential integration blockers early: incompatible auth models, missing APIs, data format mismatches, latency constraints, compliance issues (GDPR, PCI-DSS).
Document the partner's current state architecture — what they have, what they need, what they can and cannot change.
Example: A fleet management SaaS wants ryd transactions in their dashboard. You analyze: Do they have a webhook receiver? Can they consume our Kafka events? Do they need pull (API) or push (webhook)? What data format do they expect? What's their latency tolerance? What auth do they use?
2. Recommend Integration Approaches
From ryd's catalog of integration approaches, select the best fit for the partner.
Justify the recommendation with technical reasoning — not just "this approach works," but "this approach works best because X, and here's why approach Y doesn't fit because Z."
When no existing approach fits perfectly, identify the gap and propose an adaptation or a new approach pattern — and feed it back to the System Architect.
Estimate integration effort, timeline, and risks.
Example recommendation: "For this partner, the Webhook Push approach is best because they already have a webhook ingestion pipeline. We'll map ryd's order.completed event to their fuel_expense schema. Auth via API key + HMAC signature verification. Estimated: 3 sprints for full integration."
3. Draft Integration Architecture
Create the high-level integration architecture document: system context diagram, data flow diagram, sequence diagrams for key flows, component mapping.
Define the API contract: request/response schemas, event payloads, error codes, rate limits, idempotency keys.
Specify the authentication and authorization model: OAuth 2.0, API keys, mTLS, JWT — whatever the partner's context requires.
Define the error handling and retry strategy: what happens when the partner's system is down? When our system is down? When data is malformed?
Specify non-functional requirements: latency SLAs, throughput, data retention, logging, monitoring.
Create low-level technical design for the integration: which ryd services are involved, which APIs are called, which Kafka topics are consumed/produced, which databases are read/written.
4. Hands-On Validation (POCs)
Build proof-of-concept integrations to validate the architecture before full development.
Write integration test suites — simulate the partner's system, test the integration end-to-end.
Create sandbox configurations for the partner to test against.
Demonstrate the POC to the partner and to ryd's engineering team.
Hand off the validated architecture to the development team with clear implementation guidance.
5. Collaborate with the System Architect
Provide structured feedback from every integration: what worked, what didn't, what the partner needed that wasn't in the catalog.
Identify patterns across integrations: "Three fleet SaaS partners all needed the same data enrichment step — this should be a platform capability."
Suggest improvements to integration approaches based on real-world usage.
Contribute to the integration catalog — when you create a new approach or adaptation, document it for reuse.
Participate in architecture reviews — share learnings with other Solution Architects and the System Architect.
6. Partner Communication & Stakeholder Management
Present integration architectures to partners' technical teams — clearly, confidently, and in their language.
Translate between partner business needs and ryd technical capabilities.
Manage technical expectations — be honest about what's possible, what requires compromise, and what's out of scope.
Support pre-sales activities — provide technical credibility in partner meetings.
Contribute to partner-facing documentation — integration guides, API references, best practices.
