Solutions Architect

Role Overview

You’ll be a hands-on Solutions Architect for a contract engagement supporting a cloud-native CARDS technology platform. This is a pure IC role focused on building high-quality, observable production code quickly and safely.

Responsibilities

• Backend engineering: Build production-grade distributed services using Node.js/TypeScript and modern frameworks.
• GraphQL services: Design and implement Apollo GraphQL subgraph/resolvers in TypeScript/Node.
• API & platform infrastructure: Develop APIs and services supporting credit card acquisitions workflows.
• Event-driven architecture: Ship event-driven features using Kafka or SQS, including idempotency, retries, circuit breakers, and instant rollback (shadow/parallel modes).
• Operational excellence:
  • Apply TDD, performance/load testing
  • Implement OpenTelemetry (traces/metrics/logs), define SLOs, and build production dashboards
• Delivery practices: Work with strict CI/CD, PR reviews, static analysis, and automated security scanning.
• Technical leadership (without people management): Architect platform-level services for resilience, observability, and extensibility; make high-leverage design decisions.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner with product/design/operations and other engineering teams (e.g., onboarding, credit bureau reporting, servicing & collections APIs).
• Communication & mentorship: Lead design reviews and provide technical mentorship (technical mentorship rather than direct reports).

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science/Software Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years building distributed backend services.
• 3+ years with TypeScript/Node.js in production.
• Strong experience with:
  • Node.js, TypeScript, Python, PostgreSQL, AWS
  • GraphQL (Apollo / Federation)
  • AWS (EKS/Lambda, API Gateway; S3/KMS/IAM mentioned)
  • Event streaming (Kafka/MSK or SQS)
  • Docker/Kubernetes
  • CI/CD
  • Jira
• Experience with TDD, feature flags, and safe migration patterns (strangler, shadow/parallel).
• Security/compliance: OAuth2/OIDC (Okta), least-privilege IAM, encryption, audit/retention.
• Observability: OpenTelemetry with Grafana/Datadog/New Relic (or similar).
• Architecture/design patterns best practices for scalable, robust applications.

Nice-to-haves (implicit)

• Terraform and broader cloud infrastructure experience.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and promote technical excellence (technical mentorship).