Lead Software Architect

Providius•Hamilton, ON

3h•Onsite

About The Position

Providius is seeking a senior technical leader to take ownership of the architecture for a significant engineering effort, transforming high-level concepts into working systems. This role requires someone who can navigate ambiguity, make sound architectural decisions, and determine feasibility and requirements for implementation. The individual will operate with a high degree of ownership and autonomy, serving as the technical authority on architecture and system design, including the development and delivery of production-grade, AI-native solutions. The position involves owning the technical architecture end-to-end, encompassing overall system design, data pipelines, machine learning integration, and production viability. The role includes evolving an existing architecture with guidance from the current architecture lead during a handover period. This is a hands-on position where the individual will design systems, write code, and work with real-world constraints while establishing architectural standards and direction for the team.

Requirements

8+ years of software engineering experience, with significant time in an architecture or technical leadership role
Proven experience designing and building data-intensive and distributed systems
Experience designing and delivering production-grade, AI-native solutions, including integrating and operationalizing machine learning
Strong system design and architectural fundamentals
Experience leading or mentoring engineers and setting technical standards
Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous or evolving environments
Comfortable balancing hands-on work with architectural leadership
Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly explain technical decisions and tradeoffs

Nice To Haves

Experience building or scaling new systems from early stages
Background in networking, real-time, or telemetry-heavy systems
Experience architecting ML platforms, model serving, or MLOps at scale
Experience working in smaller teams or startup environments
Deep domain expertise in Broadcast and AV-over-IP, including SMPTE ST 2110 and ST 2110-40 ancillary data
Expertise in Precision timing, including PTP / IEEE 1588 and NTP
Expertise in OT and industrial protocols, including Modbus, DNP3, and EtherNet/IP
Expertise in High-throughput network telemetry and line-rate packet capture
Expertise in Compliance-driven environments such as NERC-CIP, NIST, or PCI DSS

Responsibilities

Own and evolve the end-to-end technical architecture and system design
Make and document key architectural decisions and the tradeoffs behind them
Design the data acquisition and processing pipelines that the system depends on
Architect how machine learning is integrated, served, and operated within production systems
Contribute hands-on to development, especially on the hardest and highest-risk parts
Set technical standards and provide architectural oversight as the team grows
Work through a clean handover from the current architecture lead
Identify risks, constraints, and tradeoffs, and communicate them clearly
Collaborate with engineering, product, and leadership to keep direction aligned