Principal Systems Architect (Hands-on) – Distributed Web Platforms
Role Overview We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Systems Architect (10+ years) to lead the design and development of secure, scalable, and multi-tenant web platforms. This is a hands-on leadership role combining deep architectural ownership with the ability to guide and execute alongside a small team of engineers. You will be responsible for defining system architecture, making critical technical decisions, and ensuring high-quality delivery across backend, APIs, data systems, and cloud infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities
System Architecture & Engineering
- Define and lead the architecture of scalable, secure, and high-availability systems
- Design and implement multi-tenant platforms with strong data isolation and performance guarantees Architect robust API ecosystems (REST/GraphQL), including versioning, contracts, and governance
- Lead backend development using Node.js/TypeScript, ensuring clean, maintainable, and high-performance code
- Design and optimize data models across RDBMS and NoSQL systems
- Make key decisions around system design, trade-oAs, and technology choices
- Ensure systems are built for scalability, fault tolerance, and distributed operation
- Establish patterns for caching, concurrency control, and performance optimization
- Own system reliability: monitoring, observability, incident handling, and recovery strategies
- Define and enforce best practices for security, authentication, and data protection
- Contribute to frontend architecture where necessary for end-to-end system coherence.
Team Leadership & Delivery
- Lead and mentor a small, high-impact engineering team (2–6 engineers)
- Drive execution by breaking down complex initiatives into clear deliverables
- Conduct code reviews, design reviews, and enforce engineering standards
- Set architectural guidelines, coding practices, and development workflows
- Actively unblock team members and provide technical direction
- Own delivery timelines, quality, and outcomes of the team
- Collaborate with product, design, and stakeholders to align technical execution with business goals Participate in hiring, onboarding, and mentoring engineers Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement
Cloud & Infrastructure
- Architect and operate systems on AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, IAM, etc.)
- Define scalable deployment strategies and CI/CD practices
- Optimize infrastructure for cost, performance, and reliability
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years of professional experience in software engineering
- Proven experience as a technical leader or architect, while remaining hands-on
- Strong expertise in Node.js (JavaScript/TypeScript)
- Extensive experience designing and building distributed, scalable systems
- Deep experience with API design and development (REST/GraphQL)
- Strong expertise in relational databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL), including performance tuning
- Hands-on experience with NoSQL systems (DynamoDB, MongoDB, Redis, etc.)
- Proven experience designing and implementing multi-tenant architectures
- Strong understanding of system design principles: scalability, consistency, partitioning, caching, concurrency
- Hands-on experience with AWS cloud ecosystem
- Experience building secure systems with modern authentication and authorization models
- Solid understanding of frontend technologies (React or similar)
- Strong experience with Git and collaborative development workflows
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Python scripting for automation, tooling, or data workflows
- Familiarity with microservices and event-driven architectures
- Experience with Docker/Kubernetes Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines
- Knowledge of observability tools (logging, tracing, metrics)
- Experience working on high-scale or low-latency systems
What Sets You Apart
- Ability to think in terms of systems, not just components
- Strong architectural judgment with pragmatic decision-making
- Proven ability to lead small teams and deliver complex systems
- Deep ownership mindset—responsible for both technical and team outcomes
- Strong communication skills across technical and business stakeholders
- Balance between hands-on execution and strategic thinking
Impact & Ownership
- Define the technical foundation of critical platforms
- Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team
- Establish engineering standards, architecture patterns, and best practices
- Deliver systems that are secure, scalable, and built for long-term evolution
