Architect, Federated GraphQL

eBay•Portland, OR

3d•Remote

About The Position

Join the team shaping the future of eBay’s API ecosystem. In this FGQL Architect role, you will help define, scale, and govern eBay’s global GraphQL Federation platform, enabling hundreds of internal engineering teams and millions of customers worldwide to access data through a seamless, reliable API experience. This is a highly impactful architecture role for someone who enjoys setting technical direction, building platform standards, and influencing engineering at scale. You will partner across business units to establish federation patterns, guide platform evolution, and improve how teams design and deliver APIs across eBay. This role is ideal for a strong backend architect who brings deep distributed systems expertise, a clear point of view on API design, and the curiosity to grow GraphQL Federation capabilities in a complex global environment.

Requirements

10+ years of experience designing backend architectures for large-scale distributed systems, including microservices and asynchronous event-driven environments.
Strong understanding of API and schema design principles, with hands-on experience in GraphQL Federation, GraphQL API, REST, and/or gRPC.
Demonstrated technical leadership with the ability to define architectural standards, influence multi-functional partners, and communicate complex ideas clearly to varied audiences.
Proficiency in Java with Spring Boot and/or Node.js, along with comfort working in JVM and JavaScript/TypeScript-based service environments.
Experience with cloud-native infrastructure and modern software delivery practices, including Kubernetes, CI/CD, observability, and platform reliability.
A platform-minded approach that balances scalability, security, and developer ergonomics, along with the ability and willingness to deepen expertise in GraphQL Federation in a fast paced environment.

Responsibilities

Define the architectural vision for eBay’s federated GraphQL platform, establishing scalable standards for schema design, composition, and execution across a broad internal engineering ecosystem.
Build and champion governance frameworks for schema quality, enterprise security, and API performance, helping teams adopt consistent and sustainable patterns across business units.
Design and evolve high-performance platform components such as gateways, query optimization layers, caching strategies, and observability capabilities to support global scale and reliability.
Partner with product and engineering teams to guide their transition to federation, providing architectural consultation, developer enablement, and hands-on mentorship that accelerates adoption.
Evaluate and influence API strategy across GraphQL, REST, and gRPC, recommending the right patterns and trade-offs to improve platform resilience, usability, and developer experience.
Raise the technical bar for API architecture at eBay by advocating for clear standards.
Encourage alignment across collaborators.
Craft opportunities for teams to learn and build with confidence.