Associate Director Staff Engineer Software

Responsibilities and Architecture

• Architecture Design & Domain-Aligned Solutions
  • Define and evolve scalable, resilient architectures for communication platforms supporting customer engagement (voice, messaging, digital channels)
  • Design solutions aligned to industry-specific requirements:
    • Communications: real-time processing, high availability
  • Ensure alignment with enterprise target-state architecture and platform strategy
• Hands-on Engineering (≈50%)
  • Design and implement backend services, APIs, and integration layers
  • Build and deploy applications using containerized environments and Kubernetes orchestration
  • Develop production-grade code, prototypes, and reference implementations
  • Architect API-first ecosystems, including GraphQL and RESTful services
  • Design event-driven and streaming architectures to support real-time communication and marketing workflows
  • Integrate with enterprise platforms such as:
    • Contact center / CPaaS platforms
    • Marketing automation and customer data platforms
• Cross-functional Leadership & Influence
  • Collaborate with engineering, product, and enterprise architecture teams to ensure solution alignment and execution
  • Act as a thought partner, introducing innovative approaches and improving system design quality
  • Influence decisions across teams without formal authority
• Standards, Governance & Continuous Improvement
  • Establish and enforce architecture standards, reusable patterns, and engineering guardrails
  • Drive simplification, scalability, and reduction of technical debt
  • Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend pragmatic adoption aligned to business value

Technical Skills

• Strong expertise in backend architecture and distributed systems design
• Hands-on experience with:
  • Kubernetes and containerization (Docker, orchestration patterns)
  • GraphQL and modern API architectures (REST, event-driven systems)
  • Microservices and cloud-native platforms
  • Observability: Distributed tracing (X-Ray/OpenTelemetry), structured logging, metrics/alerting pipelines.
  • Messaging & Orchestration: SQS/EventBridge or equivalents (Pub/Sub, Service Bus); DLQs; workflow engines.
  • CI/CD: Automated pipelines with tools including Github Actions, Jenkins or equivalent experience
• Experience building or supporting real-time or high-throughput systems
• Proficiency in backend technologies (e.g., Java, Kotlin, Node.js, Go, or similar)

Domain Experience (Preferred)

• Candidates should have experience in one or more of the following:
  • Financial Services
  • Secure, compliant systems (PII, PCI, regulatory constraints)
  • Transactional platforms (payments, lending, servicing)
  • Communications / MarTech / Contact Center
  • Low-latency, high-availability distributed systems
  • Personalization engines, campaign orchestration
  • Voice, messaging, IVR, or omnichannel engagement platforms

Architecture & Engineering Capabilities

• Ability to operate across strategic architecture and hands-on implementation
• Strong grounding in:
  • scalability, resiliency, and performance engineering
  • API lifecycle and governance
  • system integration and orchestration patterns
• Experience aligning solutions to enterprise target-state architecture

Personal Attributes

• Self-starter: Proactively drives outcomes with minimal oversight
• Thought provocateur: Challenges existing paradigms and elevates architectural thinking
• Collaborative: Builds alignment across engineering, product, and architecture teams
• Pragmatic: Balances long-term vision with near-term delivery needs
• Influential communicator: Clearly conveys complex technical concepts to varied stakeholders