Staff Architect

We are seeking an experienced and hands-on Software Architect to define and drive the technical architecture for the VBC platform. This role will focus on building scalable, resilient, and high-performing systems that power real-time communications across voice, video, messaging, and collaboration features. The ideal candidate brings deep technical expertise, a strong product mindset, and a collaborative spirit to partner closely with engineering, product, and infrastructure teams.

Key Responsibilities

Architectural Leadership:
● Define and maintain the high-level architecture for the VBC platform, spanning real-time communication systems, backend microservices, and client applications.
● Make architectural decisions that ensure performance, scalability, reliability, and maintainability across the platform.
● Provide technical direction on system integration, APIs, event-driven architecture, and data modeling.

Technology Strategy:
● Evaluate and select appropriate technologies, frameworks, and design patterns to meet product goals.
● Drive innovation by identifying opportunities to leverage emerging technologies such as AI, observability platforms, and cloud-native tools.
● Contribute to the long-term technical roadmap and evolution of the UCaaS architecture.
Collaboration & Influence:
● Collaborate closely with engineering leads, product managers, DevOps, SRE, and security teams to align architecture with product and operational goals.
● Participate in design and code reviews to ensure alignment with architectural vision and standards.
● Act as a mentor and guide for engineers, promoting sound engineering practices and architectural thinking.

Hands-on Engineering:
● Build proof-of-concepts and prototypes to validate architectural approaches.
● Dive deep into complex engineering problems and provide practical solutions.
● Ensure system observability, fault tolerance, and high availability are designed into the platform from the ground up.

Qualifications
Required:
● Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
● 12 years of experience in software development, with at least 3 years in an architect or staff engineer role.
● Proven expertise in designing and scaling distributed systems and microservices architectures.
● Knowledge of real-time communication protocols such as SIP, WebRTC, RTP, and signaling flows.
● Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred), containers (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), and event streaming (Kafka or equivalent).
● Deep understanding of API design, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code.

Preferred:
● Experience with UCaaS, VoIP, or telecom-grade platforms.
● Exposure to multi-tenant SaaS architectures and global deployments.
● Familiarity with mobile SDKs, frontend performance optimizations, and cross-platform communication.
● Knowledge of DevSecOps, observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry), and compliance frameworks.

#LI-CK1

There's no perfect candidate. You don't need all the preferred qualifications to make a valuable impact on our team. Our employees and customers come from diverse backgrounds, so if you're passionate about what you could achieve at Vonage, we'd love to hear from you.

Who we are:

Vonage is a global cloud communications leader. And your talent will further help brands - such as Airbnb, Viber, WhatsApp, and Snapchat - accelerate their digital transformation through our fully programmable-based unified communications, contact center solutions, and communications APIs. Ready to innovate? Then join us today.

Note: The purpose of this profile is to provide a general summary of essential responsibilities for the position and is not meant as an exhaustive list. Assignments may differ for individuals within the same role based on business conditions, departmental need or geographic location.