Software Architect Sr Lead

FIS Global•Jacksonville, FL

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Software Architect Sr Lead will join FIS’ Non-Functional Engineering team, which is responsible for the performance, scalability, and resilience of the OPF payments product line. The globally distributed team defines and validates non-functional requirements, develops load, stress, and endurance testing, and uses measured results to guide tuning, sizing, and architecture decisions. The role involves investigating how payment platforms behave under load and identifying ways to improve performance. The architect profiles running Java systems, analyzes runtime behavior and design decisions, and works with product engineers to prototype and validate optimizations. The aim is to deliver measurable improvements in throughput, latency, and cost, while providing practical architecture recommendations and technical guidance to engineering and delivery teams. The position is based in Jacksonville, Florida, with a hybrid schedule of three days in the office and two days remote. The posting specifies that this location is the only one for the role.

Requirements

Strong hands-on software engineering background with deep Java/JVM expertise and an interest in reading, understanding, and improving code.
Proven experience in performance engineering, performance tuning, or software architecture for complex enterprise systems.
Strong understanding of concurrency, garbage collection, memory management, I/O, thread pools, locking, asynchronous processing, and distributed system behavior.
Experience with Java profiling and diagnostic tools such as Java Flight Recorder, async-profiler, JProfiler, or equivalent tools.
Ability to connect metrics with code behavior and turn evidence into clear, actionable technical recommendations.
Strong communication skills and confidence constructively challenging design choices with engineering, architecture, and product stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience with payment platforms, banking systems, high-volume transaction processing, or other mission-critical financial technology environments.
Knowledge of OPF, payment hubs, SEPA, SWIFT, instant payments, clearing, settlement, or related payment-processing concepts.
Experience with Oracle, PostgreSQL, MQ, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Azure, AWS, Linux/AIX, WebSphere, or Open Liberty.
Experience leading technical investigations, mentoring senior engineers, or driving architecture-level performance improvements across distributed teams.
Exposure to load, stress, endurance, and resilience testing practices for large-scale enterprise platforms.

Responsibilities

Profile Java applications across CPU, memory, threads, and I/O using tools such as Java Flight Recorder, async-profiler, and JProfiler to identify throughput constraints.
Analyze thread dumps to diagnose lock contention, deadlocks, thread-pool exhaustion, and blocking I/O, and reshape concurrency models to address constraints.
Use performance test evidence, logs, telemetry, and code-level analysis to identify bottlenecks across application, database, messaging, network, and platform layers.
Prototype and validate improvements involving code, configuration, JVM, database, caching, messaging, and deployment optimizations.
Translate measured performance results into architecture recommendations, sizing guidance, and engineering actions for product and delivery teams.
Serve as a technical reference for non-functional architecture and coach engineers on performance-aware design, scalability patterns, and resilient implementation choices.