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Job Description — Principle Architect

About you

You are a seasoned architect and product-minded technologist who leads through

influence across multiple teams. You’ve led large, multi-quarter platform

migrations or consolidations, and you balance pragmatism with long-term

architectural clarity. You are excellent at communication up, down and across, and

you turn ambiguity into clear direction.

• Proven experience leading large-scale platform or product migrations across multiple teams

• Deep eCommerce or high-volume transactional systems experience (checkout, payments, order management, catalog)

• Expert in domain-driven design, API design, and microservices/event-driven architecture

• Strong breadth: frontend architecture (Next.js, SSR/SSG, CDN/edge) and backend (Node/Java microservices)

• Cloud-native on AWS; comfortable defining requirements and guardrails for platform teams

• Influences without authority; mentors Staff and Senior engineers, raises the bar across org

Team intro

This role is cross-cutting across Technology & Product, not limited to eCommerce.

You’ll partner with Heads of Engineering, Staff Engineers, Product and Platform to

define and drive the end-to-end system architecture spanning eCommerce,

post‐purchase, manufacturing and data. You’ll be accountable for architectural outcomes, migration strategy and enabling product engineering to ship safely at pace.

How we work

• Distributed-first across time zones

• We are currently hiring roles in Cape Town to expand capability and time‐zone

• coverage

• For this role: hybrid in Cape Town twice a week is expected. Until we secure

• an office, this will be remote‐first with scheduled in‐person collaboration days

• Async-first collaboration via Slack, Zoom, Miro and Notion as our source of truth

• Clear written updates; use ADRs for key technical decisions

What you’ll do

• Own and evolve the end‐to‐end architecture and migration strategy across domains (eCommerce, Post‐Purchase, Manufacturing, Data)

• Define domain boundaries and service decomposition using DDD; standardise API and event contracts to enable parallel delivery

• Set architectural north stars and guardrails; establish patterns for routing, strangler cutovers, and progressive rollout

• Lead technical governance: ADRs, standards for APIs/events, NFRs, security and compliance in partnership with CISO/DevSecOps

• Partner with Product and Engineering leaders to translate business strategy into coherent, incremental technical roadmaps

• Raise the bar on developer experience and reliability (CI/CD, observability, SLOs, fitness functions) working with Platform

• Guide risk management and decision-making on one‐way doors; communicate trade‐offs to execs and teams

• Mentor and amplify Staff Engineers; facilitate design reviews, knowledge sharing and architectural learning loops

Example initiatives you may lead

• Cross‐domain migration plan: orchestrate end‐to‐end cutover from the Classic platform to the modern stack across UFO (upper funnel), Build (design experience), Buy/Checkout, and Post‐Purchase, sequencing outcomes and defining one‐way door decisions and rollback paths

• Architectural standards and contracts: define shared API and event schemas for catalog, pricing, checkout, order, and manufacturing domains; introduce compatibility testing and contract enforcement in CI

• Edge and performance strategy: define Vercel edge, caching and rendering strategies for SEO‐critical and personalised routes; set performance budgets and governance to protect Core Web Vitals at scale

• Data migration and synchronisation: blueprint dual‐write/backfill patterns, reconciliation workflows, and decommissioning checkpoints to ensure integrity across legacy and modern stores

Responsibilities and accountabilities

Architecture and governance

• Responsibilities: Define target architecture, standards and patterns; ensure decisions are captured via ADRs; steward security, privacy and compliance guardrails

• Accountabilities: Architectural integrity, reduced complexity over time, safe migration with controlled risk, clear decision trail

Delivery enablement

• Responsibilities: Enable parallel team delivery through well‐designed interfaces and migration patterns; unblock teams with timely guidance and reviews

• Accountabilities: On‐time cross‐team delivery of strategic outcomes; fewer blockers; consistent adherence to standards

Developer experience and reliability

• Responsibilities: Partner with Platform to uplift CI/CD, observability, SLOs and incident learning; advocate for fitness functions and paved roads

• Accountabilities: Improved flow and stability metrics; faster, safer releases; measurable DX improvements

People leadership (without line management)

• Responsibilities: Mentor Staff/Senior engineers; run architecture reviews and forums; translate architecture into business impact for executives

• Accountabilities: Higher engineering leverage, clearer alignment, stronger technical decision quality across the org

Nice to have

• Team management experience (while this role has no direct line management, leadership of managers and Staff+ peers is valuable)

• Experience establishing or scaling an international engineering team in Cape Town (or similar hub)

• Experience with headless/MACH architectures, Next.js, React, infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform)

• Experience modernising legacy systems alongside building new capabilities

Hiring Process

OfferZen - Screening

Technical Vetting

Competency Screen - Nikkhil + Claire

Culture Fit - One of our Engineering Managers + a Senior or Staff Engineer