Platform Architect

Location: Menlo Park, CA

Type: FTE, direct hire

We are seeking a Platform Architect to define and evolve the architectural foundation of a growing financial technology platform. This role will own end-to-end system architecture across shared services and core infrastructure, with a focus on scalability, reliability, security, and developer efficiency.

Responsibilities:

• Own the technical architecture and long-term platform strategy across core systems and shared services.
• Design scalable, secure, and fault-tolerant distributed systems for financial and enterprise applications.
• Define architectural standards for APIs, data models, service boundaries, and infrastructure patterns.
• Partner with engineering teams on system design, implementation guidance, architecture reviews, and complex technical problem-solving.
• Collaborate with Security and Infrastructure teams on authentication, authorization, key management, resilience, and defense-in-depth controls.
• Evaluate new technologies and architecture patterns while balancing innovation, maintainability, and operational maturity.
• Ensure platform designs can support enterprise, institutional, and regulatory requirements.
• Document architectural decisions, technical tradeoffs, and long-term roadmaps.
• Mentor senior engineers and help strengthen architectural practices across engineering teams.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience designing and operating large-scale platform or infrastructure systems.
• 6+ years of software development experience building production-grade backend systems.
• Proven experience as a Platform Architect, Principal Engineer, Senior Systems Architect, or comparable technical leadership role.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, including fault tolerance, replication, consensus, and networking.
• Strong experience with cloud and/or hybrid infrastructure, including technologies such as AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, or bare-metal environments.
• Experience designing APIs, data models, and distributed services that operate reliably at scale.
• Strong expertise in security-critical systems, including authentication, authorization, cryptography, and key management.
• Experience designing highly available systems for financial, transactional, or other mission-critical applications.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working effectively with distributed or cross-functional engineering teams.
• Experience with blockchain, digital asset, or distributed ledger infrastructure (preferred).
• Experience contributing to open-source projects (preferred).
• Familiarity with HSMs, secure enclaves, or hardware-backed key storage (preferred).
• Background in fintech, capital markets, or institutional financial systems (preferred).