Principal Backend Architect Cloud & Security

Role Overview: You are a hands-on Principal Backend Architect with experience in building and deploying scalable software systems in production. Your main responsibility will be designing, building, deploying, and securing a high-scale security platform from scratch. You should have a strong background in backend systems, distributed architectures, cloud infrastructure, and DevSecOps practices. While frontend experience is optional, a solid understanding of system design and infrastructure ownership is essential. This role requires practical experience in taking real systems from design to production, scaling them, and managing operational challenges effectively. Key Responsibilities: - Architect and build scalable, backend-first distributed systems. - Design cloud-native infrastructure on AWS with a focus on isolation, observability, and resilience. - Deploy and operate systems using CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, and automated monitoring. - Develop secure-by-design architectures in alignment with cybersecurity principles. - Define and enforce DevSecOps practices, logging, auditing, and compliance standards. - Drive architectural decisions related to performance, scale, cost optimization, and security posture. - Provide guidance to engineering teams on system design trade-offs and operational excellence. Qualifications Required: Core (Must Have): - 5+ years of experience in building backend systems in production environments. - Proven track record of scaling systems handling high concurrency or sensitive workloads. - Strong hands-on experience with distributed systems, microservices, API design, backend architecture, database design (SQL + NoSQL), event-driven systems, and asynchronous processing. - Deep expertise in AWS services such as VPC, IAM, EC2, EKS, Networking, Security, and Observability. - Experience deploying systems using CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.), and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes). - Solid understanding of system design fundamentals including consistency models, caching strategies, fault tolerance, rate limiting, and horizontal scaling. Security & Cybersecurity (Mandatory): - Strong understanding of authentication and authorization models, network security principles, encryption (at rest and in transit), secrets management, IAM, and least-privilege access. - Previous experience building or operating security-sensitive systems. - Ability to think in terms of threat models, risk mitigation, and attack surfaces. Nice to Have: - Experience with security platforms or compliance-heavy environments. - Exposure to SIEM, SOC workflows, or threat intelligence systems. - Knowledge of GPU workload or ML pipeline experience. - Background in performance profiling and cost optimization at scale. Additional Company Details: This role is not a pure frontend position, documentation-only architect role, or a cloud "theory" position. It is a hands-on role focused on building and owning infrastructure. Ideal candidates are engineers who have experience in fixing issues in production, think critically about failure modes and scale limits, enjoy owning infrastructure as much as application code, and possess strong operational instincts as backend-first engineers. Role Overview: You are a hands-on Principal Backend Architect with experience in building and deploying scalable software systems in production. Your main responsibility will be designing, building, deploying, and securing a high-scale security platform from scratch. You should have a strong background in backend systems, distributed architectures, cloud infrastructure, and DevSecOps practices. While frontend experience is optional, a solid understanding of system design and infrastructure ownership is essential. This role requires practical experience in taking real systems from design to production, scaling them, and managing operational challenges effectively. Key Responsibilities: - Architect and build scalable, backend-first distributed systems. - Design cloud-native infrastructure on AWS with a focus on isolation, observability, and resilience. - Deploy and operate systems using CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, and automated monitoring. - Develop secure-by-design architectures in alignment with cybersecurity principles. - Define and enforce DevSecOps practices, logging, auditing, and compliance standards. - Drive architectural decisions related to performance, scale, cost optimization, and security posture. - Provide guidance to engineering teams on system design trade-offs and operational excellence. Qualifications Required: Core (Must Have): - 5+ years of experience in building backend systems in production environments. - Proven track record of scaling systems handling high concurrency or sensitive workloads. - Strong hands-on experience with distributed systems, microservices, API design, backend architecture, database design (SQL + NoSQL), event-driven systems, and asynchronous processi