Associate Director, Software Architecture at Volante… · Chennai

Associate Director, Software Architecture

Location: Chennai

About Us

Volante Technologies is the leading global provider of low-code cloud Payments as a Service solution for financial businesses. We are disruptors and innovators and we are growing fast. For the last three years, we have been the #1 seller of wholesale payment systems worldwide. At Volante, we are all about revolutionizing the world of Payments.

Role Summary

We are looking for a seasoned Technical Architect who is currently active in hands-on engineering and brings deep expertise across messaging systems, Java-based backend technologies, large-scale distributed architecture, and modern cloud-native delivery. The ideal candidate thrives at the intersection of architecture and engineering — capable of drawing design blueprints in the morning and writing production code or conducting a proof of concept in the afternoon.

This is a practitioner-first role. You will be expected to make informed architectural decisions grounded in proven patterns, lead by example in technical execution, and mentor engineering teams through complex design and delivery challenges. You should be comfortable using AI/LLM tools in your day-to-day work and have the ability to quickly understand, learn, and implement AI-enabled solutions where they add clear value.

What You’ll Do

Hands-On Architecture & Design

• Design and evolve large-scale, distributed systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, and performance, including AI/LLM-enabled components where appropriate.
• Make well-reasoned architectural decisions based on proven patterns such as Event-Driven Architecture, CQRS, Saga, Circuit Breaker, and API Gateway, and apply similar rigor to AI integrations (guardrails, fallbacks, observability).
• Create clear architecture blueprints, sequence diagrams, and technical specifications to guide engineering teams, including designs for services that interact with LLM APIs or AI workflows.
• Actively participate in code reviews, technical discussions, and sprint ceremonies to ensure architectural alignment, and leverage AI tools to accelerate reviews, refactoring, and documentation where suitable

Messaging & Integration Systems

• Design and implement messaging solutions using Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, IBM MQ, and ActiveMQ.
• Leverage Apache Camel for enterprise integration patterns, routing, and transformation pipelines, including integration with AI/LLM services where relevant.
• Ensure high-throughput, fault-tolerant messaging architectures that meet SLA requirements.
• Evaluate and recommend the right messaging technology based on use-case, volume, and latency requirements.

Software Engineering (Java & Spring Ecosystem)

• Develop and review production-quality code in Java and Spring Boot, leading by technical example, and use AI/LLM tools to assist with boilerplate, tests, and refactoring while maintaining high quality.
• Champion microservices best practices including API design, service decomposition, and inter-service communication, including secure and observable integration with AI services.
• Conduct and lead Proof of Concepts (POCs) for evaluating new frameworks, libraries, and technologies.
• Ensure adherence to coding standards, design patterns, and engineering best practices, including safe and responsible use of AI-generated code and suggestions.

Containerization, Kubernetes & Cloud

• Design and oversee containerized deployment strategies using Docker and Kubernetes (K8s).
• Manage workload orchestration, autoscaling, resource quotas, and namespace design on Kubernetes clusters.
• Collaborate with DevOps and platform teams to build robust CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code practices, incorporating AI-enabled tooling to improve productivity and reliability.
• Ensure container security, network policies, and secrets management are baked into the architecture.

Observability & Performance Monitoring

• Establish and embed observability frameworks covering distributed tracing, structured logging, and metrics collection.
• Define performance monitoring and alerting standards across services and infrastructure.
• Conduct performance profiling and tuning of Java applications including JVM, heap, and GC optimization.
• Lead performance benchmarking exercises and resolve bottlenecks in high-traffic, latency-sensitive systems.

Memory Management & Performance Tuning

• Demonstrate deep expertise in JVM memory management — heap sizing, GC strategies, metaspace, and memory leak analysis.
• Utilize profiling tools (e.g., JProfiler, VisualVM, async-profiler) to diagnose and resolve performance issues.
• Tune application performance at the code, runtime, and infrastructure levels.
• Define best practices for resource utilization and memory-efficient programming patterns.

Database Architecture (RDBMS & NoSQL)

• Design relational data models and optimize queries for PostgreSQL, Oracle, or MySQL.
• Architect NoSQL solutions using MongoDB including schema design, indexing strategies, and aggregation pipelines.
• Define data access patterns, connection pooling strategies, and caching layers.
• Ensure data consistency, integrity, and resilience across distributed data stores.

Proof of Concepts & Innovation

• Proactively identify technology gaps and propose PoCs to validate architectural decisions before broader adoption, including AI/LLM-based approaches where they can improve productivity, reliability, or customer outcomes.
• Work hands-on with engineering teams during PoC phases to prototype and evaluate solutions.
• Translate PoC outcomes into actionable architectural recommendations and implementation roadmaps.

What You Bring

Must-Haves

• 12 to 16 years of progressive hands-on experience in software engineering with a strong architecture track record.
• Currently active in coding and engineering — not purely a management or advisory role.
• Demonstrable expertise in Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, IBM MQ, ActiveMQ, and Apache Camel.
• Strong proficiency in Java and Spring Boot for building enterprise-grade microservices and APIs.
• Proven experience designing large-scale distributed systems that handle high volumes and strict SLAs.
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes and containerization including production cluster operations.
• Expertise in observability practices — distributed tracing (e.g., Jaeger, Zipkin), logging (ELK/EFK), and metrics (Prometheus/Grafana).
• Strong understanding of JVM internals, memory management, and performance tuning techniques.
• Solid experience with both RDBMS (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle) and NoSQL databases (MongoDB).
• Ability to make architecture decisions grounded in established patterns and proven engineering principles.
• Experience conducting and leading Proof of Concepts (PoCs) end-to-end.
• Comfortable using AI/LLM tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or similar) in day-to-day work for design, coding, reviews, documentation, and debugging.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly understand, learn, and implement AI/LLM-based solutions and integrate them pragmatically into enterprise architectures when they add clear value.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience in payments, financial messaging, or regulated financial technology platforms.
• Exposure to event sourcing, stream processing (e.g., Kafka Streams, Apache Flink).
• Experience with chaos engineering and resilience testing practices.
• Hands-on experience integrating LLM APIs or using AI frameworks (e.g., Spring AI, LangChain4j, or similar) in Java-based systems.
• Familiarity with vector databases or vector search (e.g., pgvector, Weaviate, Pinecone, Milvus) and RAG patterns.
• Exposure to responsible-AI practices in production (data governance, auditability, cost/latency monitoring, human-in-the-loop where needed).

What We Offer

✔ Competitive compensation

✔ Health benefits

✔ Remote/flexible work options

✔ Professional development support

📍 Location

Chennai / Pune

Equal Opportunity Statement

At Volante Technologies, we believe diversity drives innovation and inclusion fuels success. We are committed to creating a performance driven workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered to bring their authentic self to work. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and ensure equitable opportunities for growth. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, age, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other factor protected by law. Together as ONE TEAM, we celebrate differences and foster collaboration, creativity, and belonging.