Principal Backend Architect

As a Principal Backend Architect for our client in the Technology, Information, and Media industry, your role will involve leading the design and development of large-scale distributed systems to power next-generation products. Your responsibilities will include: - **Architecture Leadership**: - Define, document, and evolve the backend architecture for mission-critical systems. - Translate product requirements into scalable, maintainable, and extensible system designs. - Drive best practices in system reliability, scalability, and cloud-native architecture. - **Hands-on Engineering**: - Build prototypes and deliver production-ready code to validate architectural decisions. - Collaborate on backend service development, API design, and data models. - Oversee deployment pipelines, performance optimization, and monitoring frameworks. - **Collaboration & Mentorship**: - Partner with cross-functional teams to align technical direction with business needs. - Provide mentorship and technical guidance to engineers at all levels. - Conduct architecture reviews, code reviews, and promote engineering excellence. - **Operational Ownership**: - Ensure high standards of data security, compliance, and governance across systems. - Drive observability, fault tolerance, and resilience in production systems. - Anticipate long-term technical challenges and design strategies to address them. **Qualifications Required**: - 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in an architectural leadership role. - Strong command of at least one backend language (Python, Golang, or C++). - Proven experience in designing distributed systems, microservices, and APIs. - Deep expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerized environments. - Strong knowledge of SQL and NoSQL databases, caching, and data modeling. - Ability to balance big-picture system design with hands-on coding and implementation. - Excellent problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills. In addition to the qualifications, it would be beneficial if you have experience with machine learning platforms, orchestration frameworks, or agentic systems. A track record of architecting large-scale cloud-native systems for enterprise or consumer products and exposure to event-driven architectures, streaming pipelines, or high-throughput systems would be considered as preferred qualifications.,