Steve Dodd — Solutions Architect

About

I'm a Solutions Architect with over 20 years' experience in IT, including over eight years at a leading AWS consultancy, combining technical depth with commercial acumen. I'm equally comfortable at board level, helping businesses understand their options, as I am working alongside engineering teams to design and validate solutions.

I specialise in translating complex requirements into clear, commercially viable proposals, and in bridging the gap between sales, delivery, and technical stakeholders throughout a project's lifecycle. I hold active AWS certifications at Professional level, with particular depth in security and a growing focus on AI and generative AI services.

Expertise

Cloud & Architecture

AWS across compute, networking, storage, security and databases. AWS Well-Architected Framework and cloud migration strategy.

Security

AWS security architecture and the shared responsibility model, with security-focused design and compliance experience.

AI & Emerging Tech

Working knowledge of AWS generative AI services including Bedrock, and practical use of AI tooling in day-to-day work.

Infrastructure as Code

Terraform and AWS CloudFormation, applying IaC principles in cloud-native environments.

Containers & DevOps

Docker and Kubernetes, plus CI/CD pipeline design and deployment automation.

Pre-Sales & Commercial

End-to-end pre-sales ownership: discovery, scoping, proposal writing and stakeholder management.

Experience

Current · 2020 – Present
Principal Consultant, The Scale Factory

Senior technical pre-sales role owning solutioning and scoping for an AWS Advanced Partner consultancy.
2018 – 2020
Consultant, The Scale Factory

Hands-on AWS delivery across SaaS, startup and enterprise clients, with a focus on security and DevOps.
2015 – 2018
Head of Systems, CPC Connect

Led infrastructure modernisation for large-scale global platforms serving over 12 million users.
2010 – 2015
Senior Systems Administrator, Qsoft Consulting / CPC Connect

Joined as Qsoft Consulting, acquired by CPC Connect during this time. Supported high-availability, internationally used web platforms, before promotion to Head of Systems in 2015.
2004 – 2010
Earlier IT Support Roles

Technical consultancy and IT support roles, building the operational foundation for later systems and architecture work.

Certifications

AWS Solutions Architect
Professional Issued Nov 2018
Expires Oct 2027 Earners of this certification have an extensive understanding of designing technical strategies to accomplish specific business goals. They demonstrated the ability to balance best practices and trade-offs based on business context. Badge owners are able to design solutions across multiple platforms and providers.

AWS Solutions Architect
Associate Issued Jun 2018
Expires Oct 2027 Earners of this certification have a comprehensive understanding of AWS services and technologies. They demonstrated the ability to build secure and robust solutions using architectural design principles based on customer requirements.

AWS AI Practitioner Issued Feb 2025
Expires Feb 2028 Earners of this certification understand AI, ML, and generative AI concepts, methods, and strategies in general and on AWS. They can determine the correct types of AI/ML technologies for a given use case and know how to use AI, ML, and generative AI tools responsibly.

AWS Cloud Practitioner Issued Oct 2019
Expires Oct 2027 Earners of this certification have a fundamental understanding of IT services and their uses in the AWS Cloud. They demonstrated cloud fluency and foundational AWS knowledge, including the essential services needed to set up AWS-focused projects.

AWS Security
Specialty Expired Jun 2026 Earners of this certification have an in-depth understanding of AWS security services and the shared responsibility model between AWS and the customer. They demonstrated the ability to design, implement, and troubleshoot security solutions in AWS.

AWS SysOps Administrator
Associate Expired Jun 2021 Earners of this certification have a comprehensive understanding of how to deploy, manage, and operate IT systems on the AWS Cloud. They demonstrated the ability to migrate on-premises workloads to AWS and monitor, scale, and secure systems.

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Issued Jan 2021
No expiry Earners of this certification have demonstrated foundational-level knowledge of cloud services and how those services are provided with Microsoft Azure, covering core concepts, pricing, and governance.

CompTIA Linux+ Issued Aug 2009
No expiry Earners of this certification have the knowledge and skills required to succeed as a system administrator supporting Linux systems, including configuring the system, navigating the command line, and managing packages and scripts.

HashiCorp Terraform Associate Expired Aug 2023 Earners of this certification know the basic concepts, skills, and use cases associated with open source HashiCorp Terraform, and can utilise it according to the certification objectives.

CNCF Certified Kubernetes
Administrator Expired Oct 2022 Earners of this certification demonstrated the skills, knowledge and competencies to perform the responsibilities of a Kubernetes administrator, including installation, configuration, networking, scheduling, security and troubleshooting.

View credentials on Credly →

Interests

Family

As father to two girls, making time for family matters. That might mean board games on a rainy afternoon, a walk, a cup of tea and cake somewhere, or just spending time together, and we try to get away on holiday when we can. Every so often, if they're feeling brave, I'll even let them tag along on a bike ride.

Cycling

You'll usually find me out on the bike, Strava open, quietly chasing KOMs I will almost certainly not get (there's always someone faster up that hill). Between that and just racking up the miles, I'm always on the lookout for a new route I haven't ridden before.

Guitar

A fairly new hobby, and I mean that in the most honest sense: I'm learning, slowly, and there's a long way to go yet. No gigs on the horizon, just steady (if unspectacular) progress.

Hands-On & DIY

I enjoy getting properly hands-on with practical, DIY-type jobs around the house, tackled whenever time allows off a list that never seems to get any shorter. The biggest project so far was building my own garden room from scratch at our previous house. When energy's in shorter supply, LEGO fills much the same gap: still a project with instructions that actually make sense, just with a lot less sawdust.

Home Lab & Automation

As an early adopter of Home Assistant, I've got an ongoing love/hate relationship with automating the house, lights, heating, and all sorts of integrations tied together behind the scenes. My measure of success isn't how clever it is, it's whether it stays "partner friendly": if nobody's complained, I've done my job, which isn't too different from managing client expectations at work. More recently I've been dabbling with ESPHome, building the odd sensor for the bits that don't quite exist off the shelf.

Growing Vegetables

At the end of the garden is a hidden vegetable patch and summer house, deliberately kept as a tech-free zone. No automations, no ESP devices, nothing smart allowed down there, though I'll admit to sneaking a laptop down occasionally when a task calls for a calmer atmosphere. Depending on the time of year, it's as much a case of growing veg as it is growing weeds. Our free-roaming chickens are also banned from this part of the garden, for entirely different reasons.

Let's Talk

Always happy to talk cloud architecture, security or pre-sales.

mail@stevedodd.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn