Senior Application Architect at Applaudo

About You

You are a Senior Application Architect with strong hands-on experience designing scalable, secure, and high-performance backend systems in distributed environments. You enjoy solving complex integration challenges, defining robust API ecosystems, and building cloud-native solutions on Microsoft Azure. You bring a strong architectural mindset combined with practical engineering experience, allowing you to balance technical excellence with business impact. You are comfortable working in production-critical environments, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and guiding technical decisions that improve scalability, reliability, and maintainability.

Note: This role operates under a 7-month contractor model, with the possibility of extension.

You Bring to Applaudo the Following Competencies:

• 6+ years of experience in backend architecture, software engineering, or similar technical leadership roles.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong hands-on experience designing scalable backend architectures and distributed systems.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Azure cloud services and cloud-native architectures.
• Solid experience designing and governing API ecosystems using REST and/or GraphQL.
• Strong understanding of API Management platforms such as Azure API Management, Apigee, or API Gateway solutions.
• Experience implementing secure authentication and authorization mechanisms using OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and Azure AD.
• Hands-on experience with event-driven architectures and asynchronous processing patterns.
• Experience working with messaging systems and integration-heavy environments.
• Strong knowledge of backend technologies such as Node.js and NestJS.
• Experience working with relational databases such as PostgreSQL and SQL Server.
• Strong understanding of scalability, availability, resiliency, and system performance optimization.
• Experience troubleshooting and supporting production-level distributed systems.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and documentation skills.
• Advanced English proficiency with conversational fluency for US-based stakeholder collaboration.

You Will Be Accountable for the Following Responsibilities

• Design scalable, secure, and resilient backend architectures for complex distributed systems.
• Define and govern API ecosystems, integration patterns, and technical architecture standards.
• Lead architecture decisions related to cloud-native solutions on Microsoft Azure.
• Design and optimize event-driven and asynchronous processing solutions.
• Architect secure authentication and authorization flows using industry best practices.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure architecture alignment and technical feasibility.
• Translate business and operational requirements into robust technical solutions.
• Drive performance, scalability, availability, and reliability improvements across systems.
• Support integration strategies with external platforms, services, and enterprise systems.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production-level architecture and integration issues.
• Mentor engineering teams and provide technical leadership across projects.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, architecture standards, and integration guidelines.
• Ensure solutions comply with security, reliability, and operational best practices.