Senior Solutions Architect

The Reality

We're a 30-person company with more than 3.4 billion downloads of our open-source cloud-native API gateway. Our technology powers critical infrastructure across financial services, healthcare, retail, transportation, and public-sector organizations globally. We're building strategic partnerships with NVIDIA, Oracle, Nutanix, HPE, SUSE, Microsoft, and others. We're at an inflection point where AI security and cloud-native adoption are creating unprecedented demand for what we've built.

We have a strong technical team, but customer demand is outpacing our capacity. We need another exceptional solutions architect who can meet the bar our existing team has set. That means deep technical expertise, excellent customer presence, and the ability to solve complex problems under pressure.

What We're Building

Traefik Labs provides the connectivity layer for modern infrastructure. We started with the most popular cloud-native API gateway (Traefik Proxy), then added enterprise API Gateway capabilities with security and governance, and now offer full API Management with developer portals, versioning, and lifecycle controls (Traefik Hub).

Recently, we've added AI Gateway for securing LLM deployments and MCP Gateway for AI agent governance. These aren't theoretical features. Enterprises are deploying AI in production right now and need someone who can design the architecture, prove it works, and get it into production with security, scalability, and observability.

The Role

You'll join our solutions architecture team in North America, reporting directly to me (the CEO). The bar is high because our existing solutions architects are exceptional. You'll need to be technical enough to architect complex deployments, solve real problems in customer environments, and write code when required. But you also must be comfortable in front of technical leaders, CTOs, present at industry events, and win technical trust in high-stakes evaluations.

You'll work on landing new logos and expanding existing customers. That means everything from initial technical discovery calls to multi-week POCs to post-sale technical expansion discussions. You're part forward-deployed engineer, part trusted advisor, part problem solver.

What You'll Actually Do

• Run technical discovery and solution design. Understand customer architecture, identify requirements, and design how Traefik fits their infrastructure. Sometimes this means whiteboarding. Sometimes this means reading their Kubernetes manifests.
• Lead proof-of-concept engagements. Build the demo environment. Configure the deployment. Debug issues. Write scripts and automation. Get it working in their environment, not just yours.
• Present to technical audiences. Explain API gateway architecture to platform engineers. Present security models to CISOs. Lead technical workshops for DevOps teams. Stay in the technical domain.
• Solve real customer problems. Air-gapped deployments. Multi-cluster Kubernetes. Complex authentication flows. NVIDIA NIM integration. You figure it out, document it, make it repeatable.
• Work with product and engineering. You'll see use cases we haven't considered, edge cases that break assumptions, and features customers actually need. Feed that back. Influence the roadmap.
• Contribute to reference architectures and technical content. Expand our deployment patterns, create integration guides, and document best practices. Build on what the team has started.
• Support the sales team. Help qualify opportunities. Run technical workshops. Defend the architecture in competitive situations. Make sure we're bidding on deals we can actually win.
• Expand existing customers. Work with current customers on new use cases, additional clusters, and API Management upgrades. Figure out what else they need and how we can help.

Who Won't Succeed Here

Let's be direct about what doesn't work:

• Pure presenters who can't build. If you're great at slides but can't actually deploy Kubernetes, troubleshoot networking, or read YAML, this isn't for you.
• Engineers who can't talk to humans. If you're brilliant technically but can't explain concepts to non-technical audiences or read the room in customer meetings, you'll struggle.
• People who need perfect documentation. There's no complete playbook. Customer scenarios vary wildly. You need to figure things out, not wait for instructions.
• Solutions architects who won't get their hands dirty. Sometimes you need to SSH into a customer's server, debug a configuration, or write a quick script. That's part of the job.
• Anyone allergic to ambiguity. Customer requirements are often unclear. Use cases evolve. You need to navigate uncertainty and still deliver results.
• People who can't context-switch. One day, you're deep in Kubernetes networking. The next day, you're discussing AI security models. Then you're presenting architecture to a CISO. That's the reality.

Who Will Thrive

Non-Negotiable Requirements

• Engineering background. You've written production code, deployed distributed systems, and debugged complex technical problems. This isn't a learn-on-the-job role.
• Natural in front of customers. You're comfortable presenting to technical leaders, CTOs, leading technical workshops, and building trust with skeptical engineering teams. High EQ matters as much as technical depth.
• Problem solver at heart. When things don't work, you dig in. You read docs, review logs, and test hypotheses. You don't give up or deflect to others.
• Forward-deployed engineer mindset. You're willing to work in customer environments, adapt to their constraints, and build what's needed to make the POC succeed.

Technical Experience

• 5+ years working with Kubernetes in production. You understand pods, services, ingress, operators, RBAC, and network policies. You've dealt with multi-cluster, multi-tenant architectures.
• Deep understanding of API gateways, ingress controllers, or API management solutions. You know the patterns, the tradeoffs, the edge cases.
• Strong networking fundamentals. Load balancing, TLS/SSL, DNS, TCP/UDP. You can troubleshoot connectivity issues.
• Experience with authentication and security. OAuth, OIDC, JWT, LDAP, mTLS. You understand enterprise security requirements.
• Hands-on coding ability. You can write scripts, automate deployments, and build demo environments. Go, Python, or similar languages.
• Infrastructure as code experience. Terraform, Helm, GitOps workflows. You know how enterprises actually deploy software.

Bonus Points

• Previous pre-sales or solutions engineering experience at an infrastructure or security company.
• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, LLM deployments, or GPU clusters.
• Knowledge of API management platforms, developer portals, or API lifecycle tools.
• Familiarity with air-gapped or highly regulated environments (government, financial services, healthcare).
• Active in the CNCF community, conference speaker, or technical blogger
• Experience with open-source communities and understanding of OSS to commercial conversion dynamics.

Why This Is Special

• Direct CEO access: You'll report to me. Weekly 1:1s. Direct input into product strategy and technical direction. Your field experience will shape what we build.
• Join an excellent team: Our existing solutions architects are exceptional. The bar is high. You'll work with talented peers who solve hard problems and win complex technical evaluations.
• Massive OSS install base: 3.4 billion open-source downloads, 58K GitHub stars. Thousands of enterprises across financial services, healthcare, retail, transportation, and government already run Traefik in production. Many of your POCs will be with existing users who just need to see the enterprise value.
• Strategic partnerships: We're building relationships with NVIDIA, Oracle, Nutanix, HPE, SUSE, Microsoft, and others. Early days, but you'll work on joint technical integrations and co-sell opportunities.
• Cutting-edge problems: AI Gateway security, MCP Gateway for AI agents, air-gapped Kubernetes deployments. You're solving problems that enterprises are facing right now, not five years from now.
• Proven