Associate Architect - Software Engineering

Please note that this requirement is for a full-time onsite role

Overview

Responsible for providing technical leadership, driving solution design and implementation, ensuring engineering excellence, and delivering scalable, secure, and high-quality software solutions. Collaborate with customer stakeholders, development teams, architects, and project managers while ensuring compliance with enterprise architecture standards, BIAN guidelines, security best practices, and banking industry requirements.

Key Responsibilities

Core Technical Leadership

• Provide strong technical leadership and guidance to engineering teams
• Lead solution design and implementation activities
• Mentor and coach engineering team members
• Provide technical oversight throughout the SDLC
• Drive technical decision-making and engineering best practices
  

Solution Architecture & Engineering

• Enforce architecture principles, coding standards, security requirements, and industry best practices
• Define scalable application architectures aligned with enterprise standards
• Ensure architectural consistency across applications and integrations
• Promote reusable design patterns and modular software development
• Drive Domain-Driven Design (DDD) principles

BIAN Standards & Banking Service Design (Mandatory)

• Ensure architectural alignment with Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) standards
• Design standardized banking services and APIs
• Define microservices boundaries and service domains aligned with BIAN
• Ensure industry-compliant core banking integration
• Promote enterprise API governance and integration standards

Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

• Participate in: Requirement gathering, technical solution design, Architecture Review Board (ARB) discussions, Development support, Peer code reviews, Testing support, Deployment activities and Production support
• Review technical designs and provide engineering recommendations
• Guide development teams through implementation and release cycles

API Design & Integration

• Drive Design-First API development
• Design enterprise-grade REST APIs using OpenAPI/Swagger
• Define API request and response contracts
• Establish API versioning strategies
• Define standardized API error handling mechanisms
• Ensure APIs are secure, reusable, scalable, and aligned with enterprise integration standards
• Promote API governance best practices

Technical Governance & Risk Management

• Review architecture, code quality, API specifications, and integration designs
• Perform peer code reviews
• Identify and communicate technical risks and architectural debt
• Drive resolution of complex technical issues
• Ensure technical delivery aligns with project timelines

Performance, Reliability & Observability

• Design solutions meeting Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs): Performance, Scalability, Availability, Reliability, Security, Maintainability
• Ensure monitoring, logging, and observability using ELK Stack or equivalent
• Drive performance tuning and troubleshooting

Application Security & Compliance

• Ensure secure coding practices
• Apply JWT and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Ensure compliance with OWASP Top 10
• Mitigate CSRF and XSS vulnerabilities
• Ensure proper handling of Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
• Ensure PCI DSS, GDPR, and banking regulatory compliance

Cryptography & Secure Communication

• Apply cryptographic principles
• Demonstrate understanding of: Symmetric encryption, Asymmetric encryption, Hybrid encryption models
• Ensure secure communication between enterprise systems and APIs

Technical Evaluation & Technology Governance

• Evaluate technology platforms, frameworks, and vendor products based on: Technology stack and Long-Term Support (LTS), Security, Compliance, Support and maintainability, Cost Scalability, Product roadmap and future viability
• Recommend technology improvements aligned with enterprise architecture objectives

Technical Competencies

Java and Software Engineering

• Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
• Java data types
• String immutability
• Heap memory management
• Memory leak analysis and prevention
• Exception handling
• Java annotations
• Design patterns (Singleton, Factory, Builder, Strategy, etc.)
• Secure coding practices
• Code quality analysis using SonarQube or equivalent tools

API and Integration

• RESTful API development
• OpenAPI/Swagger
• API versioning
• API governance
• Request/Response contract design
• Microservices architecture
• Enterprise integration patterns

Banking Architecture

• BIAN Reference Architecture (Mandatory)
• Domain-Driven Design (DDD)
• Banking service domains
• Enterprise API Governance
• Core banking integration

DevSecOps & Quality

• Unit testing
• API testing
• Performance testing
• Peer code reviews
• CI/CD practices
• Production deployment support
• Production incident troubleshooting

Non-Functional Requirements

• Performance optimization
• Scalability
• High availability
• Reliability
• Observability
• Security
• Monitoring and logging

Person Specifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with proven experience in a technical leadership role
• Proven experience leading software engineering teams in enterprise application development
• Strong experience designing enterprise applications, APIs, and microservices
• Experience in banking and financial services technology is highly desirable
• Strong understanding of BIAN architecture and enterprise integration standards
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, mentoring, and problem-solving skills

Vendor submissions - 06 months