Principal Architect

<h3>Accountabilities:</h3><li>Partner with business analysts, product owners, test leads, and other stakeholders to understand business requirements, technical objectives, and solution constraints.</li><li>Define and document end-to-end technical architectures covering data models, business processes, rules and core logic, user interfaces, APIs, integrations, and other technical components.</li><li>Evaluate both functional and non-functional requirements, considering performance, security, scalability, reusability, maintainability, backward compatibility, and production operations.</li><li>Apply API-first and modular architecture principles to create flexible solutions that can evolve with future business and technology needs.</li><li>Design extensible product capabilities that allow customers and partners to adapt solutions without negatively affecting core processing or upgradeability.</li><li>Develop architecture templates and standards that promote consistency and repeatability across engineering teams and products.</li><li>Work within SAFe Agile processes to assess project scope, develop detailed design specifications, and provide accurate development estimates at the user-story level.</li><li>Act as a design authority across multiple products by reviewing and approving architecture-related changes proposed by engineering teams.</li><li>Provide technical oversight throughout implementation and contribute hands-on code when appropriate to ensure delivered solutions align with architectural specifications.</li><li>Conduct code reviews, provide constructive technical feedback, and mentor engineers and other technical team members.</li><li>Collaborate with quality and testing teams to ensure architectural patterns and critical design considerations are adequately represented in test coverage.</li><li>Participate in product demonstrations and Show &amp; Tell sessions for internal stakeholders and customers, clearly communicating architectural decisions and capabilities.</li><li>Support technical issue analysis during testing and production, helping teams diagnose and resolve complex application and architecture problems.</li><li>Develop and demonstrate technical proofs of concept where required, translating successful findings into robust, production-quality implementations.</li><li>Ensure solutions comply with organizational standards, industry practices, security expectations, and applicable architecture principles.</li><li>Support pre-sales activities by providing technical expertise on solution architecture, integrations, product capabilities, and implementation approaches.</li><li>Continuously evaluate the impact of architectural decisions and incorporate lessons learned into future designs and standards.</li><h2>Requirements:</h2><li>15+ years of overall industry experience, including at least 7 years in software development and solution architecture for packaged software or technology products.</li><li>At least 5 years of experience working within the Life, Group, or related insurance domain, with strong understanding of insurance business processes.</li><li>5+ years of experience leading solution design and development, ideally at product or module level across areas such as underwriting, claims, or comparable insurance capabilities.</li><li>Experience with SaaS products is an advantage, as is prior solution architecture experience with another insurance software platform.</li><li>Strong hands-on development experience with multiple high-level technologies, including Java, JavaScript, and Hibernate, combined with the ability and willingness to learn new technologies.</li><li>Strong understanding of integration architecture and protocols, including SOA, REST, SOAP, message queues, interface patterns, and integration techniques with or without enterprise service buses.</li><li>Understanding of end-to-end application architecture from user interface layers through application services to databases, with experience with technologies such as SQL Server and PostgreSQL.</li><li>Thorough understanding of the complete software development lifecycle and modern software engineering practices.</li><li>Strong knowledge of non-functional architecture concerns including performance, scalability, reliability, security, and vulnerability management.</li><li>Practical knowledge of design principles such as SOLID and architecture frameworks such as TOGAF.</li><li>Experience working with Agile and SAFe methodologies, with exposure to Test-Driven Development; SAFe Agilist certification is preferred.</li><li>Strong design-thinking mindset and a pattern-based approach to solving complex technical and business problems.</li><li>Demonstrated passion for reusable, extensible, scalable, and maintainable architecture.</li><li>Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities, with the ability to evaluate the broader impact of architectural decisions.</li><li>Outstanding communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain complex solution designs to developers, testers, business stakeholders, customers, and senior leadership.</li><li>Ability to create clear technical architecture diagrams and communicate designs using tools such as Visio or PowerPoint.</li><li>Strong interpersonal and client-management skills, with the ability to establish credibility and collaborate effectively across technical and non-technical groups.</li><li>Comfortable working with distributed and remote global teams across different geographies and time zones.</li><li>Strong business acumen and the ability to understand underlying business needs, anticipate stakeholder concerns, and translate them into effective technical solutions.</li><li>Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science or a related field; a Master’s degree is preferred.</li><li>Exposure to the North American insurance market and its business processes is an advantage.</li><li>Experience working for packaged software vendors, particularly within the insurance technology sector, is an advantage.</li><h2>Benefits:</h2><li>Fully remote working opportunity based in India.</li><li>Senior-level position with significant ownership of product architecture and technical direction.</li><li>Opportunity to shape scalable, cloud-based technology solutions within the insurance sector.</li><li>Hands-on involvement across architecture, software development, integrations, technical proofs of concept, and production support.</li><li>Opportunity to influence architectural standards, reusable design patterns, and engineering practices across multiple products.</li><li>Collaboration with global, distributed teams and a diverse range of technical, business, and customer stakeholders.</li><li>Opportunities to mentor engineers and contribute to the development of strong technical practices.</li><li>Exposure to modern cloud, SaaS, API, integration, and enterprise architecture technologies.</li><li>Opportunity to contribute to customer-facing product demonstrations and pre-sales technical activities.</li><li>Professional growth through exposure to complex insurance technology challenges and emerging solutions.</li>