Lead Architect - Java/Spring Boot, Cloud

For the past 20 years, we have powered many Digital Experiences for the Fortune 500. Since 1999, we have grown from a few people to more than 4000 team members across the globe that are engaged in various Digital Modernization. For a brief 1 minute video about us, you can check https://youtu.be/uJWBWQZEA6o.

Role Summary

We are seeking a Lead Architect who can own system architecture end-to-end and clearly articulate design decisions, technology choices, and tradeoffs to senior stakeholders. This role requires deep hands-on technical expertise combined with strong technical communication and leadership capabilities. The ideal candidate should be comfortable leading architecture discussions, guiding teams, and influencing platform direction.

Key Responsibilities

- Lead architecture design for complex, large‑scale backend and platform systems, with ownership across application, integration, data, and cloud layers.

- Drive architecture and design clarity, focusing on long‑term scalability, performance, security, and resiliency rather than pure feature development.

- Clearly articulate architecture decisions, design patterns, and tradeoffs to engineers, product teams, and senior client stakeholders.

- Define and govern technology standards, design guidelines, and engineering best practices across teams.

- Review, challenge, and approve high‑level and low‑level technical designs.

- Lead technical discussions with client architects and senior engineering leadership, influencing platform direction and roadmap decisions.

- Evaluate and recommend tools, frameworks, and cloud services aligned with platform strategy.

- Support delivery teams by resolving complex technical challenges and architectural risks.

- Mentor senior engineers and tech leads to raise overall architectural maturity of the organization.

Required Qualifications

- 10+ years of overall software engineering experience with 3–4 years in an architecture or lead role.

- Strong expertise in Java, Spring Boot, microservices, and API-driven architectures.

- Strong experience designing distributed systems and enterprise-scale platforms.

- Deep experience with cloud architectures (Azure, GCP, or AWS).

- Strong knowledge of architecture and design patterns.

- Experience with CI/CD, DevOps practices, and release architecture.

- Excellent technical communication and stakeholder engagement skills.

- Proven ability to lead architecture discussions and defend design decisions.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience in regulated enterprise environments (Healthcare, BFSI, Retail).

- Experience with Kafka, Pub/Sub, or event-driven architectures.

- Knowledge of observability, performance tuning, and production readiness.

- Experience collaborating directly with client architecture teams.

- Experience in cloud migration or platform modernization initiatives.

Location

• Texas, Chicago, NY - Photon Offices

Compensation, Benefits and Duration

Minimum Compensation: USD 50,000
Maximum Compensation: USD 175,000
Compensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full time employees.
This position is available for independent contractors
No applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post