Happiest Minds Technologies
Website:
happiestminds.com
Job details:
JOB DESCRIPTION
Architect / Senior Technical Lead | C5
Centre of Excellence - AI Productivity
Job Title
Architect
Competency Level
C5
Team
CoE - AI Productivity
Min. Experience
12 Years
About the Role
We are seeking a seasoned Architect to join the Centre of Excellence - AI Productivity team. At C5, you operate at the intersection of strategic technical vision and hands-on engineering leadership. You are responsible for defining solution architecture, driving engineering excellence across multiple teams or workstreams, and ensuring that the overall technical direction aligns with business and product goals.
You bring deep expertise in full-stack development, cloud-native architecture, and a strong ability to evaluate and adopt emerging technologies - including GenAI capabilities. You are a trusted advisor to both engineering teams and senior client stakeholders, comfortable presenting architectural strategies to executive audiences and defending technical decisions with clarity and confidence.
This is a highly visible role. You will shape the technical identity of the CoE, mentor leads and senior developers and be a key voice in how AI-driven productivity is engineered and delivered.
Key ResponsibilitiesArchitecture & Technical Strategy
- Define and own solution architecture for enterprise-grade, AI-integrated applications
- Establish architectural patterns, standards, and guardrails across teams and projects
- Drive technology selection decisions with well-reasoned trade-off analysis
- Lead proof-of-concept (PoC) initiatives to validate architectural choices and de-risk delivery
- Ensure non-functional requirements - scalability, security, performance, and resilience - are embedded in every design
Engineering Leadership & Mentoring
- Provide technical leadership across multiple squads or delivery workstreams simultaneously
- Mentor Technical Leads, Module Leads, and Senior Developers on architecture thinking and engineering maturity
- Review and approve high-level designs (HLD) and provide critical input into low-level designs (LLD)
- Identify and address systemic engineering issues such as tech debt, scalability bottlenecks, or process gaps
Client Engagement & Stakeholder Communication
- Present architectural proposals and technical strategies to client leadership and C-suite stakeholders
- Lead solution design workshops, architecture review boards, and technical discovery sessions
- Translate complex architectural concepts into business-oriented language for non-technical audiences
- Act as a senior technical point of contact for client engagements, RFPs, and pre-sales discussions
GenAI & Innovation Leadership
- Lead the CoE?s evaluation and adoption of GenAI tools, LLM-based capabilities, and AI productivity frameworks
- Define best practices for prompt engineering, AI-assisted development, and responsible AI usage within engineering teams
- Drive R&D initiatives to validate GenAI applicability in product features and developer tooling
Mandatory Skills
All items below are non-negotiable requirements for this role.
Architecture & Engineering Depth
- 12+ years of software engineering experience with a minimum of 5 years in architecture or senior technical leadership roles
- Deep expertise in at least ONE backend platform - .NET (C#, ASP.NET Core), Java (Spring Boot, microservices), Node.js (NestJS, event-driven), or Python (FastAPI, Django, Flask)
- Strong full-stack understanding - frontend architecture (React/Angular), API design, data modelling, and integration patterns
- Proven experience designing microservices, event-driven, and distributed architectures at scale
- Mastery of software design principles - SOLID, DDD, CQRS, Event Sourcing, and architectural patterns
Hands-On GenAI Tool Usage (CRITICAL)
- Proven ability to leverage AI coding assistants - Claude Code, Cursor AI, or GitHub Copilot - as an active part of the development and architecture workflow, including code generation, design validation, refactoring, and API integration, with sound judgement in reviewing AI-assisted output and the ability to set standards for responsible AI tool usage across the team.
Cloud Architecture - At Least ONE Platform (Deep Expertise)
- AWS - Well-Architected Framework, Lambda, ECS/EKS, RDS, API Gateway, IAM, CloudFormation
- Azure - Azure Architecture Centre, AKS, Azure Functions, Azure AI Services, DevOps, Bicep/ARM
- Experience designing for cloud-native principles - auto-scaling, fault tolerance, cost optimisation, and security
Communication & Client-Facing Skills (CRITICAL)
- Excellent written and verbal communication - able to produce and present architecture documents, RFP responses, and strategy papers
- Strong client-facing presentation skills - experienced presenting to CTO, VP Engineering, and business leadership audiences
- Demonstrated ability to lead technical discovery sessions, workshops, and architecture review boards
Required Technical SkillsDevOps & Platform Engineering
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code - Terraform, CloudFormation, or Bicep
- Deep understanding of CI/CD pipeline design, release strategies, and deployment patterns
- Familiarity with Kubernetes, container orchestration, and observability tooling
Agile & Delivery Practices
- Experience leading Agile delivery at programme or multi-team level - Scrum, SAFe, or Kanban
- Ability to drive estimation, capacity planning, and risk management at the workstream level
GenAI & AI Productivity
- Practical understanding of Large Language Models - capabilities, limitations, and enterprise integration patterns
- Hands-on experience designing systems that incorporate LLM APIs, vector databases, or AI agent workflows
- Awareness of responsible AI principles, cost implications, and governance in enterprise AI adoption
Preferred Qualifications
- AWS Solutions Architect Professional or Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification
- Experience with platform engineering, developer experience (DevEx) initiatives, or internal tooling platforms
- Background in pre-sales - solution design, effort estimation, and proposal presentations
- Exposure to ML/AI model deployment, MLOps, or data engineering in a product context
- Experience leading or building a Centre of Excellence or shared services engineering team
Technology Landscape
Area
Technologies
Backend
.NET Core / ASP.NET | Java / Spring Boot | Node.js / NestJS | Python (FastAPI / Django / Flask)
Frontend
React | Angular | TypeScript | HTML5 / CSS3
Cloud
AWS (Lambda, ECS/EKS, RDS, CloudFormation) | Azure (AKS, Functions, AI Services, Bicep)
AI & GenAI
LLMs | Prompt Engineering | Claude Code | Cursor AI | GitHub Copilot | Azure OpenAI | AWS Bedrock
DevOps
Docker | Kubernetes | Terraform | GitHub Actions | Azure DevOps | Jenkins
Data
SQL Server | PostgreSQL | MongoDB | Redis | Vector DBs (Pinecone, pgvector)
Tools
VS Code | IntelliJ | PyCharm | Postman | Jira | Confluence | Architecture tools
C5 Competency Expectations
At C5, you are a strategic engineering leader who shapes technical direction, influences multiple teams, and represents the organisation?s engineering capability to clients and partners.
Dimension
Expected Behaviour
Architectural Vision
Defines scalable, future-proof architectures aligned with business goals across multiple programmes
Technical Authority
Recognised as the go-to technical decision-maker; challenges assumptions and drives quality standards
Leadership Breadth
Leads and mentors across multiple teams; elevates the engineering culture of the CoE
Client Influence
Shapes client technical strategy; trusted advisor at CTO and VP level
GenAI Leadership
Drives the team?s AI productivity strategy; sets standards for responsible, effective AI adoption
Innovation Impact
Introduces frameworks, tools, or architectural patterns that create measurable, lasting improvement
Happiest Minds Technologies | CoE - AI Productivity
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