Hands-on architect to design and build Node.js/TypeScript domain-driven microservices, own greenfield systems, set API standards, ensure production readiness (SLOs, observability, runbooks), lead incident triage and RCAs, mentor engineers, and collaborate across web, mobile, data, security, and ops teams to deliver scalable customer-facing APIs.
The Role
Digital API team is looking for a hands-on Architect with deep Node.js/TypeScript expertise to design and deliver domain-driven microservices for customer-facing digital experiences. You ll own greenfield builds from zero-to-production, lead engineers by example (coding ~70% of the time), and drive cross-team triage while keeping leadership proactively informed.
What You ll Do
- Design & build domain-driven, event-aware microservices in Node.js/TypeScript (Express/Fastify/NestJS) with clean, testable code.
- Architect greenfield systems: service boundaries, data models, REST APIs, event streams, CI/CD, observability, and runtime topology.
- Set API standards: versioning, OpenAPI/Swagger, pagination, error contracts, resiliency patterns (timeouts, retries, circuit breakers).
- Own production readiness: SLOs, dashboards, alerting, runbooks; lead incident triage/bridge calls and drive blameless RCAs.
- Collaborate across teams (web, mobile, data, security, ops) to unblock work, sequence dependencies, and land integrated releases.
- Communicate proactively with leadership: crisp status, risk/mitigation, dependencies, and measurable outcomes.
- Raise the bar: code reviews, engineering best practices, mentoring, pair programming, tech talks, and documentation.
- Think two steps ahead: anticipate edge cases, scaling, operability, and cost; recommend pragmatic sequencing and trade-offs.
Tech Stack You ll Work With
- Languages/Frameworks: Node.js, TypeScript, Express/Fastify/NestJS
- APIs: REST, OpenAPI/Swagger, OAuth2/OIDC, JWT
- Data: PostgreSQL/MySQL, NoSQL (MongoDB/DynamoDB), Redis cache
- Messaging/Streaming: Kafka/RabbitMQ (sagas, outbox, idempotency)
- Cloud & Platform: One major cloud (AWS/Azure/Google Cloud Platform), Docker, Kubernetes, API Gateway/Ingress, IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation)
- CI/CD & Observability: GitHub Actions/Jenkins, ELK/Dynatrace, feature flags, OpenTelemetry, Datadog/New Relic/Prometheus, log aggregation
What You ll Bring
- 8+ years backend engineering (or equivalent impact), 3+ years technical leadership on product teams.
- Expert-level Node.js/TypeScript with proven delivery of domain-driven microservices at scale.
- Strong grasp of DDD (entities/aggregates/bounded contexts), event-driven architectures, and microservice patterns (saga, outbox, circuit breaker).
- Designed secure, resilient public APIs used by web/mobile clients; deep understanding of authN/authZ (OAuth2/OIDC), secrets, and TLS.
- Production experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native deployment, CI/CD, and observability (metrics, traces, logs, SLOs).
- Demonstrated success leading triage/incident response and driving RCAs to lasting improvements.
- Outstanding communication able to simplify complex trade-offs, tell a delivery story, and keep partners aligned.
- Bias for action: you go the extra mile, anticipate the next two steps, and ship high-quality software.
Nice to Have
- Experience in telecom (ordering, provisioning, billing, identity) or large consumer digital platforms.
- API gateways (Apigee/Kong), rate limiting/quotas, multi-tenant patterns.
- Performance tuning, capacity planning, and cost optimization in cloud environments.
Compensation, Benefits and Duration
Minimum Compensation: USD 54,000
Maximum Compensation: USD 189,000
Compensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full time employees.
This position is available for independent contractors
No applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post
Photon Chicago, Illinois, USA Office
11 East Adams Street Suite 1100, Chicago, IL, United States, 60603
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