Lead Software Architect (Full Time)

As our client continues its aggressive growth, we are seeking a Lead Software Architect to drive the technical vision and modernization of our engineering organization. This is a hands-on leadership role that requires deep technical expertise, strategic thinking, and the ability to guide a diverse team of front-end, back-end, and full-stack engineers through a large-scale transformation.

You will be responsible for leading the migration from our legacy monolithic application to a modern, multi-service architecture. You will define and enforce engineering standards, build out a robust Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), and serve as the technical authority across the engineering department. This role requires close partnership with Product, Business, and Analytics teams to ensure that architecture decisions align with company goals while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.

The position will report directly to the VP of Engineering, and requires strong cross-functional collaboration skills, a passion for mentorship, and the ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead the architectural design and execution of migrating from a legacy monolithic application to a scalable, multi-service (microservices/service-oriented) architecture, defining service boundaries, API contracts, and data strategies.
• Define and own the overall technical architecture across the engineering teams, ensuring consistency, scalability, and maintainability of systems.
• Evaluate, select, and standardize technology stacks and frameworks across the organization
• Design and implement event-driven architectures, message queuing systems, and service communication patterns (REST, GraphQL, gRPC) as appropriate.
• Create and maintain architectural decision records (ADRs), technical design documents, and system diagrams to ensure clarity and knowledge sharing.
• Build and formalize a comprehensive Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) encompassing code reviews, testing strategies, deployment workflows, and release management.
• Establish and enforce coding standards, design patterns, and best practices across languages like PHP, React, TypeScript/Node.js, and related technologies.
• Implement and champion version control best practices using Git, including branching strategies, pull request workflows, and code review guidelines.
• Drive adoption of automated testing (unit, integration, end-to-end), continuous integration, and continuous deployment practices across the engineering team.
• Mentor, coach, and provide technical guidance to a team of front-end, back-end, and full-stack engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and engineering excellence.
• Conduct architecture reviews, design sessions, and technical deep-dives with engineering teams to ensure alignment with architectural standards.
• Lead by example through hands-on contributions to critical system components, proof-of-concept development, and code reviews.
• Identify skill gaps within the engineering team and develop training plans, workshops, and documentation to elevate team capabilities.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex engineering challenges and production incidents.
• Partner closely with Product Management, Business stakeholders, and Analytics teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Communicate architectural decisions, trade-offs, and technical roadmaps to non-technical stakeholders in a clear and accessible manner.
• Collaborate with DevOps and Infrastructure teams to ensure architecture decisions support operational excellence, observability, and reliability.
• Work with QA teams to establish quality gates and testing standards that align with the overall SDLC framework.
• Integrate security best practices into every phase of the software development lifecycle, including secure coding standards, vulnerability assessments, and threat modeling.
• Ensure all architectural decisions comply with relevant regulatory and compliance requirements (e.g., PCI-DSS).
• Champion data privacy and protection standards across all systems and services.
• Architect and optimize cloud-native solutions on AWS, leveraging services such as EKS, Lambda, RDS, S3, and SQS/SNS.
• Design systems for high availability, fault tolerance, horizontal scalability, and disaster recovery.
• Monitor and optimize system performance, cost efficiency, and resource utilization across the AWS environment.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a senior architect or technical lead capacity.
• Proven experience leading a modernization effort from a monolithic architecture to a multi-service or microservices architecture.
• Deep expertise in PHP (modern PHP 8.x), React, and TypeScript/Node.js.
• Strong proficiency with Git-based workflows, branching strategies, and collaborative development practices.
• Extensive experience designing and building applications in AWS cloud environments.
• Demonstrated ability to define and implement an SDLC from the ground up, including testing strategies and release processes.
• Strong understanding of API design principles (REST, GraphQL), database design (relational and NoSQL), and caching strategies.
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) in production environments.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to present technical concepts clearly to both engineering teams and executive leadership.
• Proven ability to lead, mentor, and develop engineering teams of varying skill levels and specializations.
• Strong understanding of security best practices, secure coding principles, and compliance frameworks (PCI-DSS).

NICE TO HAVES

• Experience with AI/ML technologies, including Large Language Models (LLMs), and practical knowledge of integrating AI capabilities into production systems (e.g., retrieval-augmented generation, AI-powered features, chatbots, recommendation engines).
• Familiarity with AI development frameworks and tools such as major LLM APIs and vector databases or similar technologies.
• Experience with event streaming platforms such as Kafka or AWS Kinesis.
• Knowledge of data engineering concepts, ETL pipelines, and analytics infrastructure (e.g., Airflow, dbt, Databricks).
• Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Datadog, New Relic, Splunk, or the ELK stack.
• Familiarity with headless commerce architectures and e-commerce platform design.
• Experience with performance optimization, including frontend performance (Core Web Vitals), backend profiling, and database query optimization.
• Understanding of domain-driven design (DDD) and its application to service decomposition.

WHY WORK WITH US

We set out to create a company culture that is enjoyable, rewarding, and where there is continuous upward mobility and growth opportunities. If you work hard, give the company your all, use good judgment, and have a positive attitude, then the sky's the limit. In return, there are numerous perks and benefits, including:

• Full-time highly competitive salary
• Medical Benefits and 401k available – we match up to 4% of your contributions
• $100k Life Insurance & Short Term Disability Coverage provided at no charge
• Participate in many charities and local events
• And many more...

If you're looking to be part of a growing family of enthusiastic and hard-working individuals, we'd love to hear from you!