Engineering Architect

Engineering Architect (Remote)

Salary: $230K - $250K base

Full Time / Direct-Hire

Summary:

We are hiring an Engineering Architect to help lead the technical evolution of a mission-critical legal platform used by law firms, corporations, and public sector organizations to manage complex legal work. This role is built for a top-tier architect who still builds — someone who enjoys solving hard system problems while shaping the long-term technical direction of a growing enterprise platform.

• This architect will operate in a dual role: driving architectural strategy across the organization while remaining deeply involved in the design and implementation of core systems. You will work directly with engineering teams on the platform’s most complex technical challenges — defining system boundaries, designing scalable services, shaping data architecture, reviewing critical code paths, and guiding teams through difficult technical tradeoffs.

• In this role, you will write ZERO production code. This architect will sit above 5-10 teams (50-70 engineers) and operate as force multiplier — design guidance, mentorship, technical strategy across an entire group/tribe.

• If you have operated at large scale and if your preferred mode is being a multiplier whose energy comes from making teams better simultaneously, this is a role for you.

• You will collaborate with other senior architects and engineering leaders to establish durable architectural patterns, technical standards, and platform capabilities, while remaining actively involved in building and evolving the systems that power the platform.

• You will play a central role in designing the long-term architecture of the platform, ensuring it remains scalable, resilient, and adaptable as the system grows in scale and complexity. This role requires someone who has personally architected and built large-scale distributed systems, influenced engineering direction across teams, and delivered platforms that support mission-critical workloads.

• The platform is evolving from a specialized case management product into a comprehensive legal operations platform that supports thousands of users and manages high volumes of sensitive operational data. Supporting this growth requires building systems that handle multi-tenant scale, large data workloads, complex workflow orchestration, and deep integrations with external enterprise systems.

Responsibilities:

• Architectural Strategy: Design and oversee the development of high-scale, mission-critical production systems, ensuring they are modular, composable, and extensible.
• System Modernization: Drive the evolution of "legacy" systems by implementing strategic techniques to migrate them toward a modern, target-state architecture.
• Cross-Functional Translation: Act as a bridge between Engineering and non-technical stakeholders (Product, Security, Finance, etc.) to ensure business needs are reflected in technical designs.
• Documentation & Visualization: Create clear technical documentation and complex system diagrams to communicate architectural visions across various mediums.
• Collaborative Design: Facilitate design sessions and distributed conversations, ensuring engineering teams retain ownership of their work while benefiting from expert feedback.
• Cloud & Cost Optimization: Manage and optimize cloud infrastructure (preferably AWS), balancing high performance with cost efficiencies and regional deployment needs.
• Mentorship & Growth: Serve as a high-level mentor to engineering teams, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
• Technology Scouting: Monitor the broader computing landscape to identify dependable current technologies and emerging trends worthy of adoption.
• It's also likely this role will have both feature and platform teams within their scope.

Qualifications:

• Proven Technical Depth: Extensive experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, with a "lessons learned the hard way" mentality.
• Expert System Modeling: Advanced proficiency in high-level service design and the ability to model interfaces for long-term scalability.
• Data Layer Mastery: Deep working knowledge of various data persistence layers and a nuanced understanding of which use cases suit specific technologies.
• Public Cloud Proficiency: Significant experience with a major cloud provider (AWS preferred), including a strong grasp of its capabilities and inherent caveats.
• Communication Versatility: Exceptional verbal, written, and presentation skills, with the ability to tailor complex messages for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Leadership Mindset: A hospitality-focused approach to leadership, prioritizing being "of service" to the teams you support rather than exercising rigid control.
• Collaborative Agility: The ability to propose solutions and integrate critical feedback without defensiveness, maintaining a focus on the best outcome for the product.
• Domain Expertise: A proven track record as a domain expert in a specific focus area (e.g., Front-end or Data Architecture) while maintaining a broad understanding of the full stack.