Lead Application & Product Architect, Audit

Wolters Kluwer•Coppell, TX

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a hands-on Lead Application & Product Architect, you will play a critical role in designing and guiding the implementation of applications across the Global Audit portfolio. In this position, you’ll develop detailed product blueprints, data models, integration patterns, and non-functional requirements (NFRs), ensuring alignment with portfolio standards. You will collaborate closely with product owners and engineering leads, leveraging your ability to code and build quick proofs of concept. Proficiency in Azure Well-Architected principles, experience with VS Code and GitHub Copilot, and the capability to reverse-engineer .NET solutions to inform pragmatic designs are essential for success in this role. You will report to the Principal Application & Product Architect and work a hybrid work schedule from our local office in Coppell, TX. (2 days in office, 3 days remote) Responsibilities: · Own product‑level architecture for one or more audit applications: context/container diagrams, runtime flows, data models, and integration contracts. · Make technology selections within established portfolio standards; document decisions with ADRs and align to governance. · Author SDD‑aligned documentation (Current/Target/Transition states, security, availability, compliance) and keep it current in version‑controlled repos. · Define and validate NFRs (performance, security, reliability/DR, operability/observability, cost) with measurable acceptance criteria. · Guide engineers on implementation details: APIs, events, caching, resiliency, error handling, and observability. · Build quick POCs and spikes to de‑risk approaches (retrieval/RAG, agent workflow integrations, storage lifecycle, performance tuning). · Reverse‑engineer .NET services where needed; propose modularization boundaries and refactor plans. · Design product‑specific interfaces and integrations with adjacent systems; ensure backwards compatibility and contract testing. · Implement enterprise patterns at the product level (API‑first, event‑driven, zero‑trust, IaC) and coach teams on their application. · Troubleshoot complex technical issues; drive root‑cause analysis and preventive patterns. Outcomes & Measures (examples): · Product architecture doc and diagrams published within first 30 days. · NFR dashboards live for latency, throughput, availability, error budgets, and security posture. · Two POCs per quarter with ADRs and go/no‑go decisions. · Performance targets achieved: p95 ≤ 250 ms for key product interactions; ≤ 500 ms at 3× corpus. · Reliability targets: service SLO 99.9% monthly; DR RPO/RTO ≤ 15 minutes. Required Qualifications: · 8+ years in software engineering; 3+ years in product/application architecture for SaaS or distributed systems. · Azure (or equivalent) experience: AKS/Kubernetes, Key Vault, Blob/ADLS, networking/ingress, observability; practice of Well‑Architected pillars. · .NET/C# fluency with ability to reverse‑engineer and refactor legacy code (ASP.NET Core, API design, performance profiling). · VS Code + GitHub Copilot proficiency for code exploration, test/document generation, and diagram scaffolding; strong prompt discipline. · Strong documentation skills: C4/Mermaid/sequence diagrams; ADRs; SDD‑aligned records. · POC execution: spikes across storage, indexing/search, agentic flows, and APIs; measure/report latency, cost, robustness. Preferred Qualifications: · AI agent design patterns applied at product level: · Planner–Executor or Manager→Executor orchestration for product workflows, when to use pipeline vs. swarm patterns. · Structured task decomposition, tool routing, and prompt specifications with guardrails for cost/performance. · RAG patterns: chunking, citations, provenance, and evidence binding to audit artifacts. · Memory/state: short‑term conversation, long‑term vector/graph, thread memory; lineage tracking and immutable evidence stores (WORM). · Evaluation & safety loops: self‑critique/evaluator agents, confidence scoring, HITL gates, policy checks, and audit trails. · Agent observability: per‑agent logs/spans/KPIs; trace replay and incident analysis. · Kafka/Confluent eventing; schema registry; consumer group patterns. · RAG & retrieval design with Azure AI Search; embeddings/vector stores. · Security & compliance: threat modeling, secure coding, encryption, key management. · CI/CD (Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions) and IaC (Bicep/Terraform); Kubernetes operator patterns. Core Competencies: · Systems thinking and pragmatic trade‑off analysis. · Reliability engineering mindset: SLIs/SLOs and error budgets. · Clear communication (exec narratives ↔ code‑level detail). · Bias for action: iterate quickly in code and docs; validate with data. Tools & Environment (representative): · Editor: VS Code (Copilot Chat/Agents). · Languages: C#/.NET; Python/TypeScript for POCs. · Cloud: Azure (AKS, Key Vault, Blob/ADLS, App Gateway/Ingress, Monitor/Log Analytics). · AI/Agents: Foundry Agent Service / MAF; Azure AI Search. · Storage: S3‑compatible + Azure Blob with tiering. · Diagrams: Mermaid (Markdown), C4. · Docs: SDD‑aligned, markdown in repo (/docs); ADRs in /docs/adr. Interview Process (indicative) · Technical deep‑dive: product architecture narratives and prior artifacts. · Practical exercise (2 hours): given a legacy ASP.NET Core repo, produce (1) C4 + Mermaid sequence diagrams, (2) NFRs with acceptance criteria, (3) an ADR proposing modular refactor; use VS Code + Copilot; commit docs to /docs. Notes: · Hands‑on and code‑adjacent role; expected to prototype and contribute proofs. · Candidates must be authorized to work in the relevant geography, per hiring policy. #LI-Hybrid Benefits: A comprehensive benefits package that begins your first day of employment. Additional Information: Wolters Kluwer offers great benefits and programs to help meet your needs and balance your work and personal life, including Medical, Dental, & Vision Plans, 401(k), FSA/HSA, Commuter Benefits, Tuition Assistance Plan, Vacation and Sick Time, and Paid Parental Leave. Full details of our benefits are available - https://www.mywolterskluwerbenefits.com/index.html Diversity Matters: Wolters Kluwer strives for an inclusive company culture in which we attract, develop, and retain diverse talent to achieve our strategy. As a global company, having a diverse workforce is of the utmost importance. We've been recognized by employees as a European Diversity Leader in the Financial Times, as one of Forbes America’s Best Employers for Diversity in 2022, 2021 and 2020 and as one of Forbes America’s Best Employers for Women in 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018. In 2020, we placed third in the Female Board Index, and were recognized by the European Women on Boards Gender Diversity Index. Wolters Kluwer and all of our subsidiaries, divisions and customer/departments is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. Our Interview Practices To maintain a fair and genuine hiring process, we kindly ask that all candidates participate in interviews without the assistance of AI tools or external prompts. Our interview process is designed to assess your individual skills, experiences, and communication style. We value authenticity and want to ensure we’re getting to know you—not a digital assistant. To help maintain this integrity, we ask to remove virtual backgrounds and include in-person interviews in our hiring process. Please note that use of AI-generated responses or third-party support during interviews will be grounds for disqualification from the recruitment process. Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process. Compensation: 105,800.00 - 185,450.00 USD This role is eligible for Bonus. Compensation range listed is based on primary location of the position. Actual base salary offer is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skills, experience and actual hiring location. Your recruiter can share more information about the specific offer for the job location during the hiring process. Additional Information: Wolters Kluwer offers a wide variety of competitive benefits and programs to help meet your needs and balance your work and personal life, including but not limited to: Medical, Dental, & Vision Plans, 401(k), FSA/HSA, Commuter Benefits, Tuition Assistance Plan, Vacation and Sick Time, and Paid Parental Leave. Full details of our benefits are available upon request. If making a difference matters to you, then you matter to us. Join us, at Wolters Kluwer, and be part of a dynamic global technology company that makes a difference every day. We’re innovators with impact. We provide expert software and information solutions that the world’s leading professionals rely on, in the moments that matter most. You’ll make a real difference in the lives of millions of people. Together with our customers, we help to advance sustainability, health, justice, prosperity, and commerce around the world. You can thrive at Wolters Kluwer, where diversity is core to our collective strength and high performance. Be your unique self, share your creative ideas, do your best work, and take time to grow in our caring and inclusive culture where you can belong. Wolters Kluwer reported 2023 annual revenues of €5.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 21,400 people worldwide. Our customers work in industries which impact the lives of millions of people every single day. Our mission is to empower our professional customers with the information, software solutions, and services they need to make critical decisions, achieve successful outcomes, and save time. Our expert solutions combine deep domain knowledge with technology to deliver both content and workflow automation to drive improved outcomes and productivity for our customers. We are committed to helping professionals improve the way they do business and solve complex problems with our range of digital solutions and services, which we continuously evolve to meet their changing needs. Our 188-year legacy and portfolio represent thousands of customers worldwide. For more information about our solutions and organization, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Wolters Kluwer has a dedicated team of experienced talent acquisition professionals who are ready to hear what makes you tick and share how Wolters Kluwer can help you achieve your goals and ambitions. Here Rasi Fawaz shares some tips on what recruiters are looking for on a resume. As a global organization, we recognize that solving a wide range of complex problems requires diverse perspectives and innovative thinking. We know that bringing our best to our customers, communities, and other key stakeholders requires a highly engaged and talented workforce – one that represents the diversity of those we serve and the communities where we live and work. We aim to provide a welcoming environment and equitable opportunities for all employees regardless of background, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or religion. This principle is ingrained in our company values and articulated in our Code of Business Ethics. At Wolters Kluwer, you’ll feel valued for your contributions, and you’ll know that your health, safety, and well-being are important to us. Our well-being benefits provide tools, programs, and resources to help our diverse employees feel healthy, happy, safe, and prosperous. In 2024 we were awarded Ragan’s Top Places to Work for Employee Wellbeing: Large Organization, in recognition of our commitment to maintaining and enhancing the well-being of our colleagues through our ‘Together we thrive’ well-being program. To ensure we continue to drive innovation that enables us to develop products and services to best serve our customers, we cultivate a workplace culture rooted in mutual respect, bringing forward insights from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We are also committed to complying with laws requiring equal opportunity in hiring, promotion, and other employment decisions. 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Requirements

8+ years in software engineering; 3+ years in product/application architecture for SaaS or distributed systems.
Azure (or equivalent) experience: AKS/Kubernetes, Key Vault, Blob/ADLS, networking/ingress, observability; practice of Well‑Architected pillars.
.NET/C# fluency with ability to reverse‑engineer and refactor legacy code (ASP.NET Core, API design, performance profiling).
VS Code + GitHub Copilot proficiency for code exploration, test/document generation, and diagram scaffolding; strong prompt discipline.
Strong documentation skills: C4/Mermaid/sequence diagrams; ADRs; SDD‑aligned records.
POC execution: spikes across storage, indexing/search, agentic flows, and APIs; measure/report latency, cost, robustness.

Nice To Haves

AI agent design patterns applied at product level:
Planner–Executor or Manager→Executor orchestration for product workflows, when to use pipeline vs. swarm patterns.
Structured task decomposition, tool routing, and prompt specifications with guardrails for cost/performance.
RAG patterns: chunking, citations, provenance, and evidence binding to audit artifacts.
Memory/state: short‑term conversation, long‑term vector/graph, thread memory; lineage tracking and immutable evidence stores (WORM).
Evaluation & safety loops: self‑critique/evaluator agents, confidence scoring, HITL gates, policy checks, and audit trails.
Agent observability: per‑agent logs/spans/KPIs; trace replay and incident analysis.
Kafka/Confluent eventing; schema registry; consumer group patterns.
RAG & retrieval design with Azure AI Search; embeddings/vector stores.
Security & compliance: threat modeling, secure coding, encryption, key management.
CI/CD (Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions) and IaC (Bicep/Terraform); Kubernetes operator patterns.

Responsibilities

Own product‑level architecture for one or more audit applications: context/container diagrams, runtime flows, data models, and integration contracts.
Make technology selections within established portfolio standards; document decisions with ADRs and align to governance.
Author SDD‑aligned documentation (Current/Target/Transition states, security, availability, compliance) and keep it current in version‑controlled repos.
Define and validate NFRs (performance, security, reliability/DR, operability/observability, cost) with measurable acceptance criteria.
Guide engineers on implementation details: APIs, events, caching, resiliency, error handling, and observability.
Build quick POCs and spikes to de‑risk approaches (retrieval/RAG, agent workflow integrations, storage lifecycle, performance tuning).
Reverse‑engineer .NET services where needed; propose modularization boundaries and refactor plans.
Design product‑specific interfaces and integrations with adjacent systems; ensure backwards compatibility and contract testing.
Implement enterprise patterns at the product level (API‑first, event‑driven, zero‑trust, IaC) and coach teams on their application.
Troubleshoot complex technical issues; drive root‑cause analysis and preventive patterns.