Solutions Architect

Job Title: Principal Solution Architect – Distributed Systems / Event-Driven ArchitecturePosition Type: FulltimeLocation: Chicago, IL (Onsite from Day 1, Hybrid Model – 3 Days Onsite)Job Description:We are building a culture that empowers continued learning, authentic innovation, and constant creativity. We are looking for an individual to join our team as a Solution Architect with the following skills and abilities:What You'll Do:You’ll be working alongside experts that are building Client’s next generation clearing system; and paving the future of digital transformation in the capital markets industry by:Design the applications’ architecture across distributed and enterprise technology platforms while leveraging patterns such as event-driven architecture, publish/subscribe messaging, and microservices while using infrastructure-as-code (IaC) practices to enable consistent, repeatable, and automated provisioning across environments.Define and enforce architectural standards, patterns, and best practices across engineering teams.Design streaming and batch-based systems that support both real-time and scheduled data flow across the organization.Shape and guide the architecture of message-based systems utilizing Kafka or similar platforms to enable reliable, decoupled, event-driven communication between services.Develop and oversee data architecture and integration strategies spanning streaming, batch, and message-based processing to ensure reliable, secure, and efficient data flow across systems.Own end-to-end solution architecture from ideation through implementation, including documentation of architectural decisions and system diagrams.Guide the development and deployment of distributed, cloud-native services, ensuring resilience, scalability, and cost-efficiency.Collaborate with DevOps, platform engineering, and security teams to ensure architectures are operable, resilient, and aligned with organizational standards.Review designs and code from engineering teams to ensure alignment with architectural standards, security requirements, and regulatory/compliance needs.Troubleshoot and resolve complex, cross-system issues spanning application, infrastructure, messaging, and data layers.Partner with engineering, data, and business teams to translate business requirements into robust, scalable technical solutions.Translate complex architectural decisions and trade-offs into clear, actionable insights for business stakeholders and non-technical audiences to support informed decision-making.Evaluate emerging tools, frameworks, and technologies, and provide recommendations for adoption.Mentor engineering teams on architectural best practices, distributed systems, event-driven and batch processing design.Ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.Qualifications:The requirements listed are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the primary functions.Demonstrated experience in one or more of the following domains: event-driven and message-based systems, transaction processing systems, distributed and parallel computing.Solid experience designing application architectures across distributed and enterprise technology platforms, including microservices and streaming or batch-based applicationsExperience with projects involving complex integration of disparate types of technologies/platforms and data.Experience architecting large-scale distributed systems.Architect Kubernetes-based deployment topology for stateless services and on-demand jobs, including horizontal pod autoscaling, multi-AZ resilience, and cross-region/on-prem failover and disaster recovery strategies (hot-hot, S3 replication).Fluent in object-oriented design, industry best practices, software patterns, and architecture principles.Experience defining and documenting architecture strategies, designs, and requirements across all enterprise architecture domains – business, information systems (applications & data), and technology.Experience defining non-functional requirements (NFRs) including performance, scalability, availability, and security and others as well as ensuring applications’ architecture are designed to satisfy them.Highly motivated with a strong sense of ownership of their work/projects.Excellent oral and written communication skills.Technical Skills:Software development experience in Java, Python, or C#, including building high-throughput, low-latency services for data-intensive or transaction-oriented systemsStrong knowledge of Kafka or other messaging/streaming systems, including topic design, partitioning strategies, and producer/consumer patterns for reliable, event-driven communication.Fluent in object-oriented design principles, software design patterns, and modern architecture practices (e.g., microservices, event-driven architecture, domain-driven design), with the ability to apply them to real-world, large-scale systems.Knowledge of identity and access management using OAuth2/OIDC flows (client credentials, authorization code with PKCE), JWT-based token validation, and integration with identity providers (e.g., ForgeRock, SailPoint).Knowledge of schema management and data serialization formats, preferably Protocol Buffers (Protobuf), including schema evolutionUnderstanding of data lake-house architecture and table formats such as Apache IcebergFamiliarity with Infrastructure as Code principles and tooling preferably Terraform to enable repeatable, automated environment design.Working knowledge of DevOps tooling and practices such as Git, Jenkins, Docker, Artifactory, ArgoCD, and others to support automated build, test, and deployment of distributed, containerized applications.Experience working with Cloud ecosystems (AWS, PaaS, K8s)Education and/or Experience:Minimum Qualifications:BS degree in Computer Science, similar technical field, or equivalent practical experience.10+ years of relevant work experiencePreferred Qualifications:6+ years of work experience in the capital markets industry.