Senior Architect / Head of Technology

About the Role

BizFirst is assisting our client with the search for a hands-on Senior Architect / Head of Technology who will take independent ownership of the technical organization, including architecture, engineering delivery, development and QA leadership, internal IT, infrastructure, security operations, and technical customer engagement.

The CEO currently carries day-to-day technical leadership in addition to leading the business. This is a build-the-function role for a practical, direct player-coach who can strengthen process, accountability, and documentation while remaining close to the code, the product, and daily technical decisions.

Our client develops data intelligence and performance-monitoring software used across complex IT and industrial environments. Its platform helps commercial, enterprise, and government customers analyze large volumes of data, identify root causes, and anticipate performance issues.

What You'll Do

· Own architecture and technical direction, including the technical roadmap, platform decisions, build-versus-buy recommendations, and incremental modernization of the product.

· Own engineering delivery within a structured Agile SDLC, including sprint and release execution, quality gates, testing, documentation, and close coordination with project management and QA.

· Directly manage the development and QA team, including hiring, coaching, performance management, work allocation, accountability, and knowledge sharing.

· Remain hands-on by reviewing code and designs, resolving technical blockers, and troubleshooting production issues across a mature codebase that includes long-lived C/C++ components and a SQL-backed data platform.

· Own internal IT and infrastructure, including identity, networks, backups, operating environments, and the operational side of security and compliance.

· Serve as the technical voice in customer escalations, partner integrations, and prospect conversations, and communicate facts, risks, and tradeoffs directly to the CEO.

· Improve transaction readiness through clear technical documentation, IP hygiene, key-person risk reduction, and support for technical due diligence.

Required Qualifications

Candidates should be prepared to discuss specific examples demonstrating the following:

· A practical, direct, solutions-oriented, hands-on, and process-minded approach. You are comfortable rolling up your sleeves, organizing the work, solving difficult problems, and wearing multiple hats in a lean organization.

· 10+ years of overall experience in software engineering, architecture, or technical leadership, including designing, building, and supporting complex enterprise software systems.

· Experience personally leading and directly managing a small development and QA organization, typically 5 to 15 people, with responsibility for hiring, coaching, performance, and delivery.

· Recent hands-on technical leadership, including architecture and design, code review, production troubleshooting, and release decisions.

· Experience owning and incrementally modernizing a mature production codebase, with enough technical depth to guide long-lived C/C++ components and a SQL-backed data platform.

· Experience operating within a structured Agile software development lifecycle (SDLC), including requirements, design, development, code review, testing, quality gates, release, documentation, and production support.

· Strong working knowledge of time-series data, including how it is stored, queried, analyzed, and visualized, with experience using Grafana or a comparable dashboarding and reporting tool.

· Breadth across product engineering, internal IT, infrastructure, and security, with the ability to operate effectively without a large budget, management layer, or dedicated support teams.

· Strong customer-facing and executive communication skills, including the judgment to present technical facts, risks, priorities, and tradeoffs clearly.

· U.S. citizenship, ability to work without current or future visa sponsorship, and ability to work on-site in Fairfax, Virginia.

Preferred Qualifications

The following experience would help a candidate contribute quickly:

· Experience in a private-equity-backed company or through an acquisition, technical due diligence, or post-acquisition integration.

· Exposure to security compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, or similar.

· Enterprise software experience with regulated buyers in financial services, government, telecommunications, payments, or a comparable sector.

· Hands-on C or C++ development and strong SQL experience with PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, or a comparable relational database.

· Experience with enterprise Java technologies such as Java EE/J2EE, JBoss or WildFly, JSF or PrimeFaces, and Hibernate or JPA.

· Experience with Linux and Windows environments, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, application security, vulnerability remediation, or performance tuning.

· A bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, information technology, or a related discipline, or equivalent education and experience.

Additional Experience That Would Be Helpful

These areas can be learned in the role and are not required at hire:

· InfluxDB or another time-series database.

· Dart, Flutter, or mobile application development.

· EJB, JMX, RMI, or Windows and Linux scripting and automation.

· Kafka, OpenTelemetry, or comparable event-streaming and observability technologies.

What We're Looking For

The strongest candidate is a candid, low-ego player-coach who can understand a complex software environment, make sound decisions, build reliable processes, develop the team, and personally engage when the work gets difficult.

This person seeks to understand the existing product before changing it, favors disciplined incremental modernization over a rewrite-first approach, and is comfortable operating without a large-company support structure.

Why This Role

This role offers full ownership of the technical organization at an established enterprise software company with long-standing commercial and government customers. The person in this seat sets direction, reports directly to the CEO, and has visibility to the board.

Within six months, this leader is expected to own architecture, delivery, and infrastructure, with key-person risks documented and actively declining. By 12 months, the technical organization should operate credibly and independently without the CEO in the daily technical path.

Benefits

· Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance.

· 401(k) plan with company match and health savings account.

· Paid time off and parental leave.

· Professional development support, flexible schedule, and free on-site parking.

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