Solution Architect (Remote - Work from Anywhere)

About the role

This role involves leading architectural governance for Xapo, a regulated crypto bank. The Solution Architect will facilitate decision-making through an Architectural Advice Forum and create proofs of concept to validate new technical patterns. A key part of the work includes partnering with the CTO to define and implement the company's AI strategy, from identifying opportunities to prototyping solutions and guiding engineering teams in responsible AI adoption.

The architect will be responsible for establishing and maintaining cross-cutting technical standards across backend, web, and mobile engineering. This includes defining best practices for observability, security, testing, and delivery, as well as upholding the overall engineering quality bar. The position also involves embedding security-first architecture into all development processes and championing Domain-Driven Design and Event-Driven Architecture.

Success in this position means actively coaching and mentoring engineers across various teams, identifying and resolving systemic technical risks, and managing technical debt before it impacts production. The Solution Architect will also collaborate closely with the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team on aspects like reliability, capacity planning, incident response, and the evolution of the internal developer platform. The role requires maintaining Xapo’s engineering principles and Tech Radar.

The salary range for this position is between $150,000 and $250,000 USD.

Skills that matter here

• Cloud-native architecture: This skill is essential for designing and implementing scalable and resilient systems within Xapo's infrastructure.
• Architectural governance: The role involves owning and facilitating the Architectural Advice Forum to drive decentralized decision-making.
• Distributed systems: Deep experience in designing, building, and operating these systems in production is a core requirement for the role.
• AI strategy: The Solution Architect will partner with the CTO to define and implement the company's approach to artificial intelligence.
• Security architecture: This skill is crucial for embedding security-first principles into all development and design processes.
• Domain-Driven Design: The role requires championing and applying this design approach across engineering efforts.

Who this role suits

• An experienced engineer with at least 10 years in software engineering, including 3+ years in a senior individual contributor or architect role.
• Someone with a strong background in hands-on engineering who has transitioned into an architectural leadership position.
• A person who thrives on leading by influence rather than authority, capable of guiding teams and setting technical direction.
• An individual with practical experience in regulated fintech, payments, or banking environments, and a deep understanding of security-first design.

From the employer

• Own and facilitate the Architectural Advice Forum (AAF), driving decentralised decision-making that is captured as ADRs.
• Personally build production-grade Proofs of Concept to de-risk new patterns, validate architectural ideas and demonstrate “what good looks like” ahead of broader adoption.
• Partner with the CTO on Xapo’s AI strategy, identifying high-value opportunities, evaluating tooling, prototyping solutions and helping engineering teams adopt AI responsibly across the SDLC and our customer-facing products.
• Own cross-cutting standardisation across backend, web and mobile engineering, patterns, paradigms, observability, security, testing and delivery.
• Define and uphold the engineering quality bar across backend, web and mobile.
• Embed Security-First Architecture across everything we build.
• Champion Domain-Driven Design and Event-Driven Architecture.
• Work closely with the SRE team on reliability, capacity, incident response, observability and the evolution of our internal developer platform.
• Coach and mentor engineers across SATs, platform and enabling teams.
• Surface and unblock systemic technical risks, technical debt and cross-team dependencies before they hit production.
• Maintain Xapo’s engineering principles and Tech Radar.

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in an Architect, Staff or equivalent senior-IC role.
• A strong track record as a hands-on engineer-turned-architect.
• Deep experience designing, building and operating distributed, event-driven systems in production.
• Hands-on experience with Domain-Driven Design.
• Practical familiarity with decentralised architectural governance.
• Demonstrated ability to lead by influence rather than authority.
• Experience working in regulated fintech, payments or banking environments.
• Deep experience designing security-first architectures.
• A strong perspective on modern AI/ML, LLMs, agents and applied AI in production.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

• Impact Globally, Work Remotely.
• Great work-life balance with flexible PTO.
• Collaborate, learn, and grow with a high-performance team.
• Yearly budget for individual learning and development goals.