Solutions Architect

Sector: Financial Services / FinTech

Position: Lead Platform Architect

Reports to: Chief Technology Officer

Location: Noida (On-site)

Experience: 5+ years enterprise platform engineering, 3+ years cloud platform

administration (Preferred candidates from Tier1 colleges)

SUMMARY

As a Lead Platform Architect, you will play a crucial role in designing, implementing, and managing our platform architecture to ensure scalability, reliability, and security in order to successfully help the organization scale efficiently, and cost-effectively.

To be an effective Platform Architect you must:

● Be able to quickly grasp abstract concepts and translate them into appropriate cloud systems solutions.

● Be comfortable taking ownership for broad and important areas of cloud solution design and implementation.

● Be a core business resource for both decision making in the business that has platform relevance.

● Be meticulous about scripting and testing solutions to foster knowledge transfers, scalability and repeatability.

● Be a “performance maven”, focused on highly-performant delivery of system resources in as cost-efficient a manner as possible.

● Clearly understand and effectively weigh business trade-offs in decision making.

● Be able to multitask well and be comfortable juggling multiple product development streams at once. Be comfortable with rapid change and be comfortable taking ownership to deliver results in a high-pressure product development environment.

● Have a passion for quality and an ability and willingness to grow the ability of others in your team to meet those standards. Drive quality delivery across teams with which you work.

● Communicate clearly and transparently.

● Be comfortable operating at both a high and deep-dive (low) levels of abstraction.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIREMENTS

● Azure Services Knowledge: Deep understanding and hands-on experience with various Azure services relevant to the architecture, including Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Cloud Defender, Azure Container Registry, Azure Virtual Networks, Azure Identity and Access Management (IAM), Azure Entra ID, etc.

● Kubernetes and Containerization: Proficiency in Kubernetes orchestration, containerization concepts, and related technologies such as Docker. Understanding of Kubernetes networking, storage, security, and observability features.

● Java-based Web Applications: Experience in deploying, managing, and optimizing Java based web applications. Knowledge of Java frameworks like Spring Boot, Jakarta EE, etc., and best practices for containerizing and deploying Java applications.

● Database Management: Expertise in managing and optimizing both Microsoft Azure SQL. Managed Instance and PostgreSQL databases. Understanding of database design, performance tuning, backup and recovery strategies, and data replication methods.

● Security: Strong understanding of cloud security principles, including identity and access management, network security, encryption, compliance, and data protection. Experience implementing security measures for containerized environments and database systems.

● High Availability and Disaster Recovery: Proficiency in designing highly available and resilient architectures using Azure services like availability sets, availability zones, geo-replication, failover clustering, etc. Experience implementing disaster recovery strategies for databases and applications.

● Monitoring and Logging: Experience configuring and managing monitoring solutions using tools like Prometheus and Grafana. Understanding of metrics, logs, and alerts for identifying and troubleshooting issues proactively.

● Automation and Scripting: Strong scripting skills (e.g., PowerShell, Bash) and experience with infrastructure as code (IaC) tools such as Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, Azure CLI, Terraform, etc., for automating deployment, configuration, and management tasks.

● DevOps Practices: Familiarity with DevOps methodologies and tools for continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD), version control (Git), automated testing, and deployment pipelines. Experience integrating DevOps practices into Azure environments.

● Troubleshooting and Problem Solving: Ability to diagnose and resolve complex technical issues in a timely manner. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to identify root causes and implement effective solutions.

● Communication and Collaboration: Excellent communication skills to effectively interact with stakeholders, convey technical concepts, and collaborate with cross-functional teams. Ability to document architecture designs, procedures, and best practices effectively.

● Continuous Learning: Commitment to staying updated with the latest Azure services, industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies through self-study, training, certifications, and participation in professional communities.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

● Architecture Design: Designing the overall architecture of the cloud platform, including infrastructure components, networking, security, databases, and application deployment strategies. Ensuring that the architecture meets the requirements for security, scalability, availability, and cost-effectiveness.

● Cloud Infrastructure Management: Overseeing the provisioning, configuration, and management of Azure resources required for the platform, such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, virtual networks, storage accounts, etc.

● Container Orchestration: Managing the deployment, scaling, and operation of containerized Java-based web applications in a Kubernetes cluster (AKS). Optimising Kubernetes configurations for performance, scalability, resource utilisation and security.

● Database Management: Configuring and managing Microsoft Azure SQL Managed Instance and PostgreSQL databases, including database design, performance tuning, backup and recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery.

● Security Implementation: Implementing security measures to protect the cloud platform, applications, and data. This includes configuring network security groups, network firewalls, web application firewalls, managing access controls, implementing security best practices for containers, databases, and other resources.

● Cost Optimization: Optimising the use of Azure resources to minimise costs while meeting performance and availability requirements. Implementing cost management practices, monitoring resource usage, rightsizing resources, and identifying opportunities for optimization.

● Monitoring and Alerting: Setting up monitoring and alerting solutions using tools like Prometheus and Grafana to track the health, performance, and availability of the platform and applications. Configuring alerts for proactive issue identification and resolution.

● Automation and DevOps: Implementing automation solutions and DevOps practices to streamline deployment, configuration, and management tasks. Using infrastructure as code (IaC) tools, CI/CD pipelines, and automation scripts to automate repetitive tasks and improve efficiency.

● Performance Optimization: Identifying performance bottlenecks and implementing optimizations to improve the performance and scalability of the platform and applications. This includes identifying application performance bottlenecks, troubleshooting database query performance, and scaling resources as needed.

● Disaster Recovery Planning: Developing and implementing disaster recovery strategies to ensure business continuity in case of outages or disasters. This includes setting up backup and recovery processes, implementing failover mechanisms, and testing disaster recovery plans regularly.

● Documentation and Knowledge Sharing: Documenting the architecture, configurations, procedures, and best practices for the cloud platform. Sharing knowledge and best practices with other team members and stakeholders to ensure understanding and adherence to standards.

● Continuous Improvement: Continuously evaluating the cloud platform's performance, security, and cost-effectiveness. Identifying areas for improvement and implementing enhancements to optimize the platform's efficiency, reliability, and value to the organization