Solutions Architect / Lead Technical Engineer

Employment Type: Full-time, Independent Contractor

Work Model: Remote

Work Hours: US Eastern Standard Time (EST) alignment

Role Overview

We are seeking a hands-on, mid-to-senior Solutions Architect / Lead Technical Engineer to own the technical architecture, integration design, and engineering leadership for our core platform operations. Operating across robust proprietary systems processing $600K–$700K/month in volume, you will bridge high-level technical discovery with practical execution—serving as the technical authority who understands the exact capabilities, security parameters, and constraints of our infrastructure.

In this role, you will lead technical discovery across new initiatives, architect end-to-end integration roadmaps, and build functional prototypes for APIs, security protocols, and data pipelines. Additionally, you will provide direct technical leadership, code reviews, and mentorship to a team of 2–3 execution engineers to ensure our systems remain performant, secure, and highly scalable.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Discovery & System Architecture

System Design & Roadmapping: Lead architectural discovery and design end-to-end integration roadmaps for our proprietary technology ecosystem.
Constraint & Security Mapping: Evaluate platform constraints, performance bottlenecks, data pipeline security, and scalability parameters to maintain high system reliability.
Hands-On Integration Prototyping: Build functional, hands-on integration prototypes and proofs-of-concept for APIs, third-party services, data pipelines, and security protocols.

2. Engineering Leadership & Team Guidance

Technical Supervision: Direct, mentor, and oversee a focused team of 2–3 execution engineers assigned to project builds.
Quality & Code Governance: Conduct thorough code reviews, enforce clean code standards, and maintain architectural integrity and security best practices across all engineering outputs.

3. Cross-Functional Technical Strategy

Executive Liaison: Translate complex business requirements from executive leadership into actionable technical specifications, architecture blueprints, and sprint objectives.
Platform Optimization: Architect and deploy long-term technical resolutions for recurring platform bugs, infrastructure bottlenecks, and edge cases.

Required Skills & Qualifications

Professional Experience: 6–10+ years of software engineering, backend architecture, or systems integration experience, including 2+ years leading engineering teams or technical projects.
Core Technical Stack: Mastery of API architecture (REST/GraphQL), microservices, secure data pipelines, database design, and modern cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP).
Prototyping & Coding Mastery: Strong, hands-on coding capability with the ability to rapidly construct production-ready integration prototypes and validation setups.
System Constraint Literacy: Deep understanding of software constraints, security protocols, and data flow limits to build realistic, secure, and scalable architectures.
Leadership & Communication: Exceptional written and verbal English communication skills with proven experience mentoring engineers, prioritizing sprint goals, and briefing non-technical executive leadership.

Success Metrics (KPIs)

Prototype Velocity: Rapidly delivering functional integration prototypes to validate new API and pipeline connections prior to full buildout.
Architectural Integrity & Stability: Designing resilient system structures that operate within system constraints with minimal technical debt or bug regressions.
Team Throughput: Successfully guiding direct reports (2–3 engineers) to achieve project milestones on schedule with high code quality and security standards.

Solutions Architect / Lead Technical Engineer - 20750