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Papaya Global, a B2B SaaS unicorn in the payroll and payments space, is seeking a Software Architect to join its central Architects Team. This is a company-wide technical leadership role spanning multiple domains including payments, payroll, workforce management, platform, data, and security.
You will not own a single product but instead partner across R&D departments to shape scalable, secure systems and maintain coherent technical direction. This is a hands-on role at the intersection of engineering, product, security, and DevOps, requiring you to influence without direct authority and dive deep into unfamiliar domains quickly.
Key responsibilities include: leading architectural design across multiple domains and infrastructure systems; acting as a trusted partner to R&D, Product, Security, and DevOps teams; defining and maintaining high-level architecture with focus on integration and long-term evolvability; building hands-on POCs to de-risk decisions; leading technical due diligence on third-party vendors; driving secure-by-design practices; evaluating emerging technologies including AI/LLM capabilities; championing AI-powered engineering tools adoption; defining architectural guidelines and standards; providing technical mentorship; and reviewing designs and critical implementations.
Required qualifications: 8+ years as a System/Software Architect designing robust, scalable systems; 12+ years hands-on software development with strong Java or equivalent backend language proficiency; proven experience building enterprise SaaS platforms and highly scaled production systems; Bachelor's in Computer Science or related field. FinTech or regulated industry experience is advantageous.
Technical depth required in: cloud-native architecture (AWS preferred); microservices and event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS); containerization (Docker, Kubernetes); software design patterns and SDLC; DDD, TDD, EDD paradigms; SOLID and related principles; security fundamentals; SQL/NoSQL databases; REST and GraphQL APIs; Git, CI/CD, and Agile practices.
Critical requirement: deep, hands-on experience with agentic AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot Agent Mode, or Codex CLI) used regularly on real work; practical fluency with LLM chat assistants, AI-assisted code review, and documentation generation; ability to design effective context for AI agents; familiarity with MCP and connecting AI agents to internal tools; awareness of security and IP risks in AI-assisted development; experience integrating AI/LLM capabilities into backend products is a strong plus.
Demonstrated ability to drive end-to-end delivery of complex features, strong analytical and self-learning skills, excellent communication and influencing abilities, and fluent English required.
