At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the architectural vision and design for a global fintech platform.
- Company: Join a dynamic fintech company shaping the future of finance.
- Benefits: Flexible working across Europe/APAC, competitive salary, and growth opportunities.
- Other info: Mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction in a collaborative culture.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on high-throughput systems in a fast-paced environment.
- Qualifications: 10+ years in software engineering with fintech expertise and cloud-native proficiency.
The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.
We’re looking for a seasoned Principal Architect / Architecture Lead to own and drive KAST’s technical strategy as we scale our global fintech platform. You will be the primary technical authority for our system design, responsible for ensuring that our high-throughput transaction engines and complex microservices ecosystem remain resilient, performant, and secure under massive load.
You will partner with Engineering, Product, and Security leadership to bridge the gap between business growth and technical execution, setting the standards for how we build, deploy, and evolve our transactional infrastructure on AWS. Location: flexible across Europe/APAC.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Own the Architectural Vision: Define and drive the long‑term technical architecture for KAST, ensuring our platform evolves to meet the demands of high‑throughput transactional volume.
- Design for Scale & Reliability: Lead the design and review of our distributed systems, ensuring our microservices architecture is built for fault tolerance, high availability, and massive scalability on AWS.
- Optimize Transactional Flows: Architect critical path systems, including our payment processing, ledger management, and financial data consistency models, ensuring sub‑millisecond performance and auditability.
- Establish Engineering Standards: Define architecture principles, coding standards, and deployment patterns (CI/CD, IaC) that enable autonomous microservices teams to ship code safely and rapidly.
- Cloud‑Native Strategy: Lead our AWS strategy, optimizing resource utilization, latency, and cost while leveraging managed services to improve developer velocity.
- Drive Security & Compliance: Integrate security‑by‑design principles into our architecture, ensuring that our transaction‑heavy environment meets strict financial compliance standards (PCI‑DSS, SOC2).
- Influence & Mentor: Act as a force multiplier for the engineering organization by mentoring senior engineers, leading architecture review boards, and guiding major technical decisions.
What You’ll Bring
- Proven Fintech Leadership: 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a significant track record architecting large‑scale payment platforms, ledger systems, or high‑volume financial infrastructure.
- Distributed Systems Expert: Deep expertise in microservices architecture, event‑driven design, and the trade‑offs inherent in building consistent, high‑throughput distributed systems.
- Cloud‑Native Proficiency: Extensive experience designing and operating complex, high‑traffic applications on AWS.
- Data & Transaction Integrity: Strong understanding of database patterns for financial data, including transaction atomicity, consistency models, and handling distributed data across microservices.
- Strategic Influencer: Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams, manage stakeholder expectations, and drive consensus on complex architectural trade‑offs.
- Security & Compliance Awareness: Knowledge of designing for security within a regulated industry, understanding how to protect sensitive financial data while maintaining system throughput.
- Growth Mindset: Ability to balance immediate delivery needs with long‑term architectural debt management.
Principal Architect in London employer: KAST
KAST is an exceptional employer that fosters a dynamic and innovative work culture, perfect for those passionate about shaping the future of payments. With a strong emphasis on employee growth, we offer numerous opportunities for professional development and collaboration within a diverse team. Located in a vibrant area, our company provides unique advantages such as flexible working arrangements and a commitment to work-life balance, making it an ideal place for talented individuals to thrive.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Architect in London
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at KAST or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to KAST.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like KAST.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like KAST that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Principal Architect in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at KAST.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at KAST and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at KAST
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If KAST uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
