Principal Software Architect (London)

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PeopleCheck provides fast, accurate background-screening solutions for compliance-driven industries. As we scale up our platform, we need a seasoned architect to help us build a rock-solid, maintainable codebase and resilient infrastructure—ensuring excellent user experience, security, and rapid feature delivery.

Role Overview

You’ll be the senior architect driving PeopleCheck’s system-health, architecture, and scalability initiatives. Reporting to the CEO and collaborating closely with our tech lead, frontend engineer, and product manager, you'll:

• Assess and evolve our current stack, delivering impactful improvements within your initial months.
• Utilize your previous architecture experience to guide design decisions and establish best practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Automated Testing & Validation
• Design and implement comprehensive CI/CD pipelines ensuring thorough coverage and reliability on critical APIs.
• Architect a fully automated test suite (unit, integration, end-to-end) and mirror staging/production environments (e.g., Docker)
• Further enhance modularity and maintainability of our backend architecture following single-responsibility principles.
• Enhance or evolve our existing architecture with microservices best practices.
• System Health & Monitoring
• Define robust error-handling patterns, integrating structured logging and alerting for swift root-cause analysis.
• Optimize and maintain infrastructure abstraction and scalability strategies for robust performance during peak loads.
• Security & Compliance
• Strengthen and maintain industry-leading security standards around credential management and database access.
• Ensure secure coding and data protection best practices throughout our stack and infrastructure.
• Documentation & Knowledge Sharing
• Lead architecture/design reviews, write thorough runbooks, and collaborate with the team on SOLID/fp-based design

Required Experience & Skills

• 5+ years in backend/system architecture or senior engineering roles
• Hands-on expertise in designing and operating scalable , high-availability systems
• Deep understanding of system design patterns: modularity, microservices, SRP (SOLID), functional decomposition
• Proven track record of delivering automated test suites (unit, integration, end-to-end) and driving 90–100% coverage on critical paths
• Comfortable with Docker , CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), and environment mirroring
• Strong experience with Node.js (or equivalent), RESTful APIs, and code structuring
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (Linode/AWS/GCP) and infrastructure-as-code principles
• Excellent communicator—able to present past case studies and guide stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in compliance or background-screening services
• Experience with microservices design and orchestration (Kubernetes, ECS)
• Knowledge of advanced observability tools (Datadog, New Relic, ELK)

Why Join Us?

• Impact : Help define the technical roadmap together with our tech lead of a mission-critical compliance platform.
• Ownership : Lead key initiatives end-to-end with direct influence on architecture and product.
• Growth : Work alongside senior tech experts and expand your skills.
• Culture : Small, agile team—fast decision-making, collaborative environment, work/life balance.

Apply Today if you’re passionate about building resilient, scalable systems and eager to share your success stories with a driven, compliance-focused team in London.

Job Type: Full-time, Permanent

• Additional leave
• Company events
• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Private medical insurance
• Referral programme
• Sick pay
• Work from home

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Language:

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Richmond TW9 (London)