Principal Architect

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Architect based in India.

This is a senior architecture role focused on designing scalable, secure, and extensible solutions for a cloud-based insurance technology platform. You will work at the intersection of business requirements, product strategy, software architecture, and hands-on engineering. The role requires ownership of end-to-end solution design, from data models and APIs to user interfaces, integrations, performance, security, and production operations. You will act as a technical design authority across multiple products, ensuring architectural consistency and high-quality implementation. You’ll collaborate with business analysts, product owners, engineering, quality teams, customers, and distributed global stakeholders. Beyond architecture, you will contribute to coding, code reviews, technical proofs of concept, mentoring, issue resolution, and pre-sales activities. This opportunity is ideal for an experienced technology leader who combines deep insurance-domain expertise with strong engineering judgment and a passion for reusable, scalable, and innovative solutions.

• Partner with business analysts, product owners, test leads, and other stakeholders to understand business requirements, technical objectives, and solution constraints.
• Define and document end-to-end technical architectures covering data models, business processes, rules and core logic, user interfaces, APIs, integrations, and other technical components.
• Evaluate both functional and non-functional requirements, considering performance, security, scalability, reusability, maintainability, backward compatibility, and production operations.
• Apply API-first and modular architecture principles to create flexible solutions that can evolve with future business and technology needs.
• Design extensible product capabilities that allow customers and partners to adapt solutions without negatively affecting core processing or upgradeability.
• Develop architecture templates and standards that promote consistency and repeatability across engineering teams and products.
• Work within SAFe Agile processes to assess project scope, develop detailed design specifications, and provide accurate development estimates at the user-story level.
• Act as a design authority across multiple products by reviewing and approving architecture-related changes proposed by engineering teams.
• Provide technical oversight throughout implementation and contribute hands-on code when appropriate to ensure delivered solutions align with architectural specifications.
• Conduct code reviews, provide constructive technical feedback, and mentor engineers and other technical team members.
• Collaborate with quality and testing teams to ensure architectural patterns and critical design considerations are adequately represented in test coverage.
• Participate in product demonstrations and Show & Tell sessions for internal stakeholders and customers, clearly communicating architectural decisions and capabilities.
• Support technical issue analysis during testing and production, helping teams diagnose and resolve complex application and architecture problems.
• Develop and demonstrate technical proofs of concept where required, translating successful findings into robust, production-quality implementations.
• Ensure solutions comply with organizational standards, industry practices, security expectations, and applicable architecture principles.
• Support pre-sales activities by providing technical expertise on solution architecture, integrations, product capabilities, and implementation approaches.
• Continuously evaluate the impact of architectural decisions and incorporate lessons learned into future designs and standards.

Requirements:

• 15+ years of overall industry experience, including at least 7 years in software development and solution architecture for packaged software or technology products.
• At least 5 years of experience working within the Life, Group, or related insurance domain, with strong understanding of insurance business processes.
• 5+ years of experience leading solution design and development, ideally at product or module level across areas such as underwriting, claims, or comparable insurance capabilities.
• Experience with SaaS products is an advantage, as is prior solution architecture experience with another insurance software platform.
• Strong hands-on development experience with multiple high-level technologies, including Java, JavaScript, and Hibernate, combined with the ability and willingness to learn new technologies.
• Strong understanding of integration architecture and protocols, including SOA, REST, SOAP, message queues, interface patterns, and integration techniques with or without enterprise service buses.
• Understanding of end-to-end application architecture from user interface layers through application services to databases, with experience with technologies such as SQL Server and PostgreSQL.
• Thorough understanding of the complete software development lifecycle and modern software engineering practices.
• Strong knowledge of non-functional architecture concerns including performance, scalability, reliability, security, and vulnerability management.
• Practical knowledge of design principles such as SOLID and architecture frameworks such as TOGAF.
• Experience working with Agile and SAFe methodologies, with exposure to Test-Driven Development; SAFe Agilist certification is preferred.
• Strong design-thinking mindset and a pattern-based approach to solving complex technical and business problems.
• Demonstrated passion for reusable, extensible, scalable, and maintainable architecture.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities, with the ability to evaluate the broader impact of architectural decisions.
• Outstanding communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain complex solution designs to developers, testers, business stakeholders, customers, and senior leadership.
• Ability to create clear technical architecture diagrams and communicate designs using tools such as Visio or PowerPoint.
• Strong interpersonal and client-management skills, with the ability to establish credibility and collaborate effectively across technical and non-technical groups.
• Comfortable working with distributed and remote global teams across different geographies and time zones.
• Strong business acumen and the ability to understand underlying business needs, anticipate stakeholder concerns, and translate them into effective technical solutions.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science or a related field; a Master’s degree is preferred.
• Exposure to the North American insurance market and its business processes is an advantage.
• Experience working for packaged software vendors, particularly within the insurance technology sector, is an advantage.

Benefits:

• Fully remote working opportunity based in India.
• Senior-level position with significant ownership of product architecture and technical direction.
• Opportunity to shape scalable, cloud-based technology solutions within the insurance sector.
• Hands-on involvement across architecture, software development, integrations, technical proofs of concept, and production support.
• Opportunity to influence architectural standards, reusable design patterns, and engineering practices across multiple products.
• Collaboration with global, distributed teams and a diverse range of technical, business, and customer stakeholders.
• Opportunities to mentor engineers and contribute to the development of strong technical practices.
• Exposure to modern cloud, SaaS, API, integration, and enterprise architecture technologies.
• Opportunity to contribute to customer-facing product demonstrations and pre-sales technical activities.
• Professional growth through exposure to complex insurance technology challenges and emerging solutions.