Software Architect Needed for System Design and Architecture Planning

We're seeking a highly experienced Software Architect to design scalable, maintainable software systems, provide technical leadership, and guide architectural decisions for our enterprise applications.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design end-to-end software architecture

• Create architecture diagrams and documentation

• Define technical standards and best practices

• Choose appropriate technology stacks

• Design microservices and distributed systems

• Plan database architecture and data flow

• Ensure scalability, performance, and security

• Review and approve technical designs

• Conduct code reviews and architectural reviews

• Mentor development teams

• Evaluate and recommend tools and frameworks

• Plan cloud migration strategies

• Design API contracts and integration patterns

• Establish DevOps and CI/CD practices

Required Skills:

• 8+ years of software development experience

• 4+ years in architecture or senior technical roles

• Expert knowledge of software design patterns

• Microservices and distributed systems expertise

• Cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP)

• Enterprise integration patterns

• Database design (SQL, NoSQL, data warehousing)

• API design and management

• Security architecture and best practices

• DevOps and CI/CD methodologies

• Excellent communication and leadership skills

Architecture Domains:

System Architecture:

• Monolithic vs. Microservices

• Service-oriented architecture (SOA)

• Event-driven architecture

• Layered architecture

• Clean architecture

• Hexagonal architecture (Ports & Adapters)

• CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation)

• Event Sourcing

• Serverless architecture

Microservices Design:

• Service decomposition strategies

• Service boundaries and domain modeling

• API gateway pattern

• Service mesh (Istio, Linkerd)

• Inter-service communication (REST, gRPC, messaging)

• Service discovery

• Circuit breaker pattern

• Saga pattern for distributed transactions

• Eventual consistency

• Data management per service

Cloud Architecture:

AWS Architecture:

• EC2, Lambda, ECS/EKS, Fargate

• S3, RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora

• API Gateway, CloudFront, Route 53

• SQS, SNS, EventBridge

• VPC, security groups, IAM

Azure Architecture:

• App Service, Functions, AKS

• Cosmos DB, SQL Database, Blob Storage

• API Management, Application Gateway

• Service Bus, Event Grid

• Virtual Networks, Azure AD

GCP Architecture:

• Compute Engine, Cloud Functions, GKE

• Cloud SQL, Firestore, Cloud Storage

• Cloud Endpoints, Cloud CDN

• Pub/Sub, Cloud Tasks

• VPC, Cloud IAM

Database Architecture:

• SQL database design (normalization, indexing)

• NoSQL database selection (document, key-value, graph)

• Database sharding and partitioning

• Read replicas and replication

• Caching strategies (Redis, Memcached)

• Data warehousing (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery)

• Data lake architecture

• Polyglot persistence

• Database migration strategies

API & Integration Architecture:

• RESTful API design

• GraphQL architecture

• gRPC for microservices

• WebSocket for real-time

• Webhook design

• API versioning strategies

• API gateway and management

• Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

• Message-oriented middleware

Security Architecture:

• Authentication and authorization

• Identity and Access Management (IAM)

• OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect

• Zero Trust architecture

• API security (rate limiting, throttling)

• Data encryption (at rest and in transit)

• Secret management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)

• Security audit logging

• Compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI-DSS)

• Threat modeling

Scalability & Performance:

• Horizontal and vertical scaling

• Load balancing strategies

• Auto-scaling policies

• Caching layers (CDN, application, database)

• Database optimization

• Asynchronous processing

• Message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS)

• Performance testing and monitoring

• Capacity planning

Data Architecture:

• Data modeling and normalization

• Master Data Management (MDM)

• Data pipeline design (ETL/ELT)

• Real-time data processing (Kafka, Spark)

• Batch processing

• Data governance and quality

• Data lineage and cataloging

• Data retention policies

• GDPR and data privacy

DevOps & CI/CD:

• Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment

• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)

• Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)

• GitOps practices

• Build pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions)

• Deployment strategies (blue-green, canary, rolling)

• Monitoring and observability

• Log aggregation (ELK Stack, Splunk)

High Availability & Disaster Recovery:

• Multi-region deployment

• Failover strategies

• Backup and restore procedures

• RPO and RTO planning

• Disaster recovery testing

• Data replication across regions

• Health checks and monitoring

• Graceful degradation

Design Patterns:

• Creational: Singleton, Factory, Builder, Prototype

• Structural: Adapter, Decorator, Facade, Proxy

• Behavioral: Observer, Strategy, Command, State

• Architectural: MVC, MVP, MVVM

• Microservices: API Gateway, Circuit Breaker, CQRS, Saga

• Integration: Publish-Subscribe, Request-Reply, Message Router

Technology Evaluation:

• Framework selection criteria

• Build vs. buy decisions

• Technology stack recommendations

• Vendor evaluation

• Proof of concept (POC) development

• Technical feasibility analysis

• Cost-benefit analysis

• Risk assessment

Documentation:

• Architecture Decision Records (ADR)

• System architecture diagrams (C4 model)

• UML diagrams (class, sequence, component)

• Data flow diagrams

• API specifications (OpenAPI/Swagger)

• Infrastructure diagrams

• Security architecture documents

• Runbooks and operational guides

• Technical specifications

Quality Attributes:

• Scalability and elasticity

• Performance and latency

• Reliability and availability

• Security and compliance

• Maintainability and extensibility

• Testability

• Observability

• Cost optimization

Legacy System Modernization:

• Assessment of existing systems

• Strangler fig pattern for gradual migration

• API-first approach

• Data migration strategies

• Phased rollout planning

• Risk mitigation

• Team training and knowledge transfer

Team Leadership:

• Architectural reviews and guidance

• Code review standards

• Technical mentoring

• Brown bag sessions and training

• Establishing coding standards

• Architectural governance

• Cross-team collaboration

Deliverables:

• Comprehensive architecture documentation

• System architecture diagrams (C4 model, UML)

• Technology stack recommendations

• Database schema and data model

• API design specifications

• Security architecture document

• Scalability and performance plan

• Cloud infrastructure design

• Disaster recovery plan

• Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)

• Technical standards and guidelines

• Migration and implementation roadmap

• Risk assessment and mitigation strategies

• Cost estimation and optimization plan

• Team training and knowledge transfer

• Ongoing architectural consulting (if needed)

Budget: $90 - $180/hour or $20,000 - $50,000 (Fixed project)

Timeline: 6-16 weeks (depending on scope)