Software Development Architect (Voice)

Bandwidth•Raleigh, NC

About The Position

Bandwidth is seeking a hands-on Voice Software Architect to serve as the technical authority for Bandwidth’s Voice platform, spanning domains such as Routing, Programmable Voice, Emergency Services, Trust Services, and AI Enablement. This is a high-impact, strategic, and deeply hands-on role responsible for defining and driving the architectural vision across the Voice organization. The role ensures systems are resilient, scalable, and operable at five-nines reliability, while enabling teams to move quickly and deliver customer value. This role is hands-on by design, with active contribution alongside engineers—writing production code, working tickets, prototyping solutions, and debugging complex issues. It is an advisory and implementation role, leading through technical contribution and influence. Great architecture at Bandwidth is grounded in reality, with the expectation to build, validate, and evolve systems in production, staying close to the code. The architect will partner closely with Business Operations, Network Engineering, Product, and Executive leadership to translate business priorities into clear technical direction, standards, and execution plans, while remaining embedded in the day-to-day engineering work.

Requirements

Ability to actively contribute to the codebase, including debugging complex issues, working production tickets, and prototyping solutions to validate architectural patterns.
Proven track record in Staff, Principal, or Architect-level roles, driving system design across multiple teams and domains.
Deep experience designing and operating high-scale, distributed systems, including high-throughput, low-latency, and event-driven architectures.
Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS or similar), including building resilient, observable systems that operate reliably in production environments.
Experience designing service-oriented systems and APIs (REST, gRPC), with a focus on scalability, maintainability, and clear service boundaries.
Proven ability to design systems that handle real-world production load, with strong consideration for fault tolerance, performance, and system resilience.
Solid understanding of networking concepts (IP, protocols) and data systems (relational and non-relational), with the ability to apply them in distributed environments.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading the technical side of large-scale platform migrations or system transformations.
Expertise in event-driven systems and asynchronous messaging patterns (e.g., Kafka) to decouple and scale complex workflows.
Experience operating systems with strict uptime requirements (e.g., 99.99%+), including global systems and regional failover strategies.
Experience with infrastructure-as-code (IaC), platform standardization, and governance at an organizational scale.
Experience with SIP, VoIP, WebRTC, or similar systems, including signaling flows, session management, and routing.
Understanding of codec negotiation, RTP/RTCP, SRTP, NAT traversal, and DTMF, including what happens after a call is established.
Familiarity with carrier integrations, call routing, and telecom reliability or regulatory constraints.
Experience building or operating systems where latency, jitter, and packet loss directly impact user experience.

Responsibilities

Stay deeply connected to implementation by actively contributing to the codebase, including writing production code, working on complex tickets, prototyping critical components, reviewing designs and code paths, and guiding teams through difficult technical challenges.
Ensure architectural decisions are validated through real systems and result in solutions that are practical, scalable, and maintainable in production.
Drive the strategic and tactical architectural vision for the Voice platform across multiple domains, including Routing, SIP, Programmable Voice, and Emergency Services.
Ground this strategy in hands-on implementation by validating designs through prototypes and direct contributions to critical systems.
Ensure systems evolve to support global scale, regulatory requirements, and five-nines availability, while translating business priorities into durable, buildable solutions.
Act as the architectural glue across teams by working directly with engineers in the code and design process.
Guide cross-system decisions through hands-on involvement in implementation, ensuring local optimizations do not compromise overall system performance or reliability.
Partner with Development Managers and Tech Leads to align execution with architectural direction through active technical contribution.
Design and implement fault-tolerant, observable, and resilient distributed systems.
Define and apply patterns for traffic routing, failover, backpressure, rate limiting, idempotency, and graceful degradation through real-world implementation.
Ensure systems are built to handle production realities by staying directly involved in critical paths and operational behavior.
Define and enforce engineering standards through direct involvement in code, design reviews, and implementation.
Establish best practices for API design, service boundaries, observability, reliability, and security, and ensure adoption by actively working alongside teams.
Drive consistency through example, not just documentation.
Lead technical decision-making by engaging directly in system design and implementation.
Evaluate tradeoffs such as build vs. buy, short-term delivery vs. long-term sustainability, and technical debt prioritization through hands-on involvement in the code and systems.
Ensure decisions are practical, well-informed, and aligned with business goals.
Collaborate with Product and leadership to shape solutions that are both feasible and scalable, grounded in hands-on understanding of the systems.
Communicate technical risks and constraints clearly, informed by direct experience in implementation.
Influence roadmap decisions through a combination of architectural insight and active technical contribution.

Benefits

100% company-paid Medical, Vision, & Dental coverage for you and your family with low deductibles and low out-of-pocket expenses.
All new hires receive four weeks of PTO.
PTO Embargo: Bandmates and managers are not allowed to interrupt your PTO.
Additional PTO can be earned throughout the year through volunteer hours and Bandwidth challenges.
“Mahalo moments” program grants additional time off for life’s most important moments like graduations, buying a first home, getting married, wedding anniversaries (every five years), and the birth of a grandchild.
90-Minute Workout Lunches and unlimited meetings with our very own nutritionist.

Stand Out From the Crowd

Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.

Upload and Match Resume