Solution Architect (Remote - Work from Anywhere) at Xapo Bank

About Xapo Bank

At Xapo Bank, diversity is fundamental to who we are. We operate as a fully distributed team of over 150 'Xapiens' working remotely from more than 30 countries globally. Our mission is to create a world where economic freedom and wealth protection are accessible to everyone, regardless of their location or country's governance. To achieve this, we recruit top talent worldwide. We are dedicated to hard work, global thinking, and fostering an environment where we inspire each other to learn and grow. We are committed to innovating how things are done. Although our headquarters are in Gibraltar, this is a full-time, 100% remote position, allowing you to work from anywhere!

Position Overview

We are seeking a Solution Architect to join our engineering function, reporting directly to the CTO. At Xapo, we are building truly cross-functional teams with full ownership over design, architecture, building, testing, delivery, data, and operations. These teams are structured as Stream Aligned Teams (SATs), Platform teams, and Enabling teams, as per Team Topologies principles. You will collaborate closely with engineering leaders and the SRE function, as well as colleagues from product, apps, and design.

This is a deeply hands-on role. You will not merely produce high-level diagrams; you will write code, build production-grade Proofs of Concept, and set a high standard by example. You will own the Architectural Advice Forum (AAF), facilitating decentralized architectural decisions, which are captured as Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), without becoming a bottleneck or single point of approval. You will serve as the CTO's partner on AI strategy, drive standardization across backend, web, and mobile engineering, and work closely with our SRE team on reliability, observability, and platform concerns. This is a unique opportunity to shape how a regulated crypto bank designs, builds, and operates software, making a tangible impact on the future of finance.

Responsibilities

• Own and facilitate the Architectural Advice Forum (AAF), promoting decentralized decision-making documented as ADRs. The goal is for decisions to be made as close to the teams doing the work as possible, rather than requiring single approval.
• Personally build production-grade Proofs of Concept (PoCs) to de-risk new patterns, validate architectural ideas, and demonstrate best practices before broader adoption.
• Partner with the CTO on Xapo's AI strategy, identifying high-value opportunities, evaluating tools, prototyping solutions, and assisting engineering teams in responsibly adopting AI across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and customer-facing products.
• Own cross-cutting standardization across backend, web, and mobile engineering, covering patterns, paradigms, observability, security, testing, and delivery, to ensure quality and velocity scale together.
• Define and uphold the engineering quality bar across backend, web, and mobile platforms, covering testing, code review, observability, security, performance, and production-readiness. Lead by example through your own PoCs and code reviews.
• Embed Security-First Architecture into every aspect of our development. For a regulated crypto bank, security is integral to our products' DNA. You will establish threat-modeling, secure-by-default, and defense-in-depth patterns that every team will build against, collaborating with our Security function to evolve these as our risk surface expands.
• Champion Domain-Driven Design and Event-Driven Architecture as foundational approaches for modeling our domain and evolving our systems.
• Work closely with the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team on reliability, capacity planning, incident response, observability, and the evolution of our internal developer platform.
• Coach and mentor engineers across Stream Aligned Teams (SATs), platform, and enabling teams, leading through inspiration and influence rather than authority, and helping the entire organization elevate its architectural standards.
• Identify and proactively address systemic technical risks, technical debt, and cross-team dependencies before they impact production.
• Maintain Xapo's engineering principles and Tech Radar, and contribute to architecture-relevant aspects of regulatory, security, and risk discussions.
• Contribute to creating an excellent work environment for talented and motivated individuals, developing innovative solutions centered on Bitcoin.

Skills Needed

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in an Architect, Staff, or equivalent senior Individual Contributor (IC) role.
• A strong track record as a hands-on engineer-turned-architect: regularly reading, writing, and reviewing production code, and enjoying it. The role is language-agnostic, focusing on thought process, though familiarity with our primary stack is a plus.
• Deep experience designing, building, and operating distributed, event-driven systems in production, ideally at scale and under regulatory scrutiny.
• Hands-on experience with Domain-Driven Design, including both strategic (bounded contexts, context mapping) and tactical patterns.
• Practical familiarity with decentralized architectural governance, Architectural Advice Forums, Request for Comments (RFCs), and Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), with a clear rationale for why architectural decisions should be made close to the teams performing the work.
• Demonstrated ability to lead by influence rather than authority; you have inspired engineers to adopt good practices through collaboration, not mandates.
• Experience working in regulated fintech, payments, or banking environments, with an appreciation for the constraints involved in managing customer funds.
• Deep experience designing security-first architectures, threat modeling, secure-by-default patterns, defense in depth, identity, key, and secret management, particularly in environments where a breach has significant business and regulatory consequences.
• A strong perspective on modern AI/ML, Large Language Models (LLMs), agents, and applied AI in production, including how to integrate them responsibly into engineering workflows and customer-facing products.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills: capable of drafting concise ADRs, conducting effective architecture reviews, presenting to engineers, and explaining trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Solid understanding of cloud-native architecture, microservices, container-based 12-factor applications, and patterns related to fault tolerance, security, and resilience.
• Strong Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), automated testing (unit, service, and end-to-end), and overall SDLC practices.

Nice to Have

• Hands-on experience in crypto, Web3, custody, or blockchain-based systems.
• Familiarity with Team Topologies and how Stream Aligned, Platform, and Enabling teams interact in practice.
• Multi-platform standardization experience spanning backend, web, and mobile.
• Background contributing to SRE or platform engineering work, including Service Level Objectives (SLOs), error budgets, and developer experience.
• Open-source contributions or external thought leadership (talks, articles, OSS projects).
• Familiarity with Python, as a significant portion of our stack uses it; however, the role is language-agnostic.

Other Requirements

• AWS as our cloud platform.
• GCP as our data warehousing.
• Containerized microservices.
• A multi-language stack.
• Based in or near a Central European Time (CET)-compatible timezone.
• A dedicated workspace.
• A reliable internet connection with the fastest available speed.
• Alignment with Our Values and the Xapo Values-Driven Leadership principles.

Why Work for Xapo?

Impact Globally, Work Remotely: Shape the future by improving lives through cutting-edge technology, working 100% remotely from anywhere in the world.

Great Work-Life Balance: Build amazing things with a balance of autonomy and collaborative teamwork. Set your own work schedule and take advantage of a flexible PTO plan when you need to recharge.

Expect Excellence: Collaborate, learn, and grow with a high-performance team. Learn how you learn best, from books to conferences, with a yearly budget for your individual learning and development goals. At Xapo, we prioritize consumer protection and adhere to regulatory requirements, ensuring all 'Xapiens' uphold principles of fair treatment, transparency, and ethical conduct in all customer and stakeholder interactions.