Principal Integration Architect

Applaudo Studios

About The Position

You are a Principal Integration Architect with deep expertise in enterprise integration platforms, API ecosystems, and cloud-native solutions on Microsoft Azure. You own decisions end-to-end, communicate blockers proactively, and influence engineering culture across multiple teams. You are as comfortable whiteboarding domain models with business stakeholders as you are reviewing pull requests with engineers. You are energized by AI adoption, someone who identifies opportunities, defines governance, and drives enablement at the team level. Note: This position is offered under a contractor model for a period of 6 months.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field is desired, or equivalent professional experience.
10+ years of experience in Software Engineering.
5+ years of experience in Architecture, Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, or Technical Leadership roles.
Proven experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale integration platforms and distributed systems, your core value is building a unified enterprise integration layer that standardizes how business domains communicate across systems and verticals.
Strong expertise in: Modern .NET patterns, async pipelines, and enterprise-scale codebases.
API Architecture and Enterprise Integrations.
Domain-Driven Design (DDD).
Event-Driven Architecture (EDA).
Test-Driven Development (TDD).
Microservices and Distributed Systems.
Cloud-Native Architecture.
Strong understanding of REST APIs, OpenAPI Specifications, OAuth2, OIDC, API Security, and Identity Management.
Experience implementing observability practices, including monitoring, logging, distributed tracing, and telemetry.
Hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure services, including Azure API Management (APIM), Azure Functions, Azure Service Bus , Event Hubs, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure SQL, Application Insights , and Azure AI Services.
You know these tools deeply as a designer and consumer, not as an infrastructure provisioner.
Knowledge of CQRS, Event Sourcing, Saga Patterns, and Distributed Transaction Management.
Familiarity with OpenTelemetry and enterprise observability platforms.
Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tools in day-to-day engineering (Copilot, code generation, LLM integration into products).
Strong communication skills with the ability to engage business stakeholders and engineering teams with equal fluency.
Demonstrated ownership and accountability: you surface risks early, remove blockers, and drive outcomes with a high degree of autonomy.
10+ years of Software Engineering experience.
5+ years in Architecture or Technical Leadership roles.
Hands-on C# and .NET (Core / .NET 6+) experience.
Deep expertise in API Architecture, DDD, EDA, and Distributed Systems.
Strong Microsoft Azure expertise: APIM, Functions, Service Bus, Event Hubs, AKS, Application Insights.
Experience integrating or leading adoption of AI capabilities in engineering environments.

Responsibilities

Design and lead the implementation of a unified enterprise integration layer that enables canonical business domains, flexible source system extensions, and seamless cross-vertical connectivity.
Define and maintain application architecture standards, principles, and best practices across the integration and API engineering organization.
Design scalable, secure, and highly available API ecosystems and integration solutions.
Lead architecture reviews and provide hands-on technical guidance across engineering teams.
Define standards for API design, security, observability, documentation, and lifecycle management.
Lead integration strategies across internal applications, ERP, SaaS platforms, enterprise systems, and external partners.
Facilitate domain discovery and event storming workshops with business and technical stakeholders.
Design and implement event-driven and message-based architectures using Azure Service Bus, Event Hubs, and related technologies.
Drive adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices to improve developer productivity, delivery speed, and solution quality.
Promote engineering excellence through TDD, Clean Architecture, SOLID principles, and automated quality practices.
Lead modernization initiatives and technical debt reduction efforts.
Partner with platform teams on CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and developer experience.
Mentor architects, technical leads, and engineering teams while fostering a culture of innovation and continuous learning.
Serve as a trusted advisor for strategic technology investments and modernization initiatives.