Lead .NET Architect (Technology & AI Labs)

Lead Architect (.NET) Venture AI Labs (Industrial Group)

This is a remote position. Lead Architect (.NET) Venture AI Labs (Industrial Group) Reports to: VP of Engineering / CTO, Embrace Technology Group

About Embrace Software Inc Embrace Software is a fast-growing, founder-led company that acquires and grows mission-critical vertical-market software businesses across Industrial, Healthcare, Financial Services, and Education. Backed by $130M+ from tier-1 investors, we own companies serving Fortune 500s, governments, and hospitals across North America. The momentum is real: $130M raised, 0 to 450+ people in five years, an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing US company.

About Embrace Technology Group Embrace Technology Group is the unified engineering organization across the Embrace portfolio, encompassing our Venture AI Labs. We build and modernize software products across six regulated industry verticals, and we are reshaping how that work gets done — AI-first, forward-deployed, and outcome-driven. Our engineers ship real products to real customers, fast. Venture AI Labs partners directly with Embrace's Industrial Group, which supports some of the world's largest manufacturers: 8 of the Top 10 global Chemical companies, 3 of the Top 10 Automotive companies, and 3 of the Top 5 Oil & Gas companies, plus leaders in Heavy Machinery and Food Manufacturing. This role sits at the intersection of both worlds: you will own platform architecture for the Industrial Group's production systems while also driving the technical vision for Venture Labs prototypes and applied AI experiments.

The Role We are hiring a Lead Architect to join Embrace Industrial Group, partnering closely with Venture AI Labs. You will serve as the technical authority for Industrial Group's mission-critical software platforms — setting architecture direction, driving system design, and ensuring our products scale to meet enterprise customer demand. Through your partnership with Venture AI Labs, you will also bring applied AI and rapid-cycle innovation into the Industrial Group's engineering roadmap. This is a hands-on architecture role. You will write critical code, produce binding architecture decisions, and review system design across the team. You will operate AI-first — using tools as primary instruments of your craft.

What You'll Do Own end-to-end platform architecture for Industrial Group, defining the structure of core application services, data processing pipelines, real-time event handling, and enterprise API surfaces across the portfolio. Design and enforce distributed systems that scale - concurrent, fault-tolerant, and built for enterprise-grade load across manufacturing, chemical, automotive, and oil & gas environments. Define data architecture and schema governance across SQL Server and NoSQL stores, including indexing strategy, stored procedure design, and query optimization at scale. Architect event-driven and messaging systems using RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus, or equivalents for reliable inter-service communication and downstream processing. Establish caching and performance standards (Redis and equivalents) across backend services, APIs, and data access layers. Lead architectural trade-off decisions and produce clear, binding Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) that communicate rationale to engineering, product, and leadership. Partner with Venture AI Labs to bring applied AI capabilities into Industrial Group products, evaluating and integrating LLM-powered features, RAG pipelines, agent frameworks, and feedback loops where they create real operational value. Translate industrial domain challenges into technical solutions - working with product and operations teams to turn complex manufacturing and process workflows into scalable, well-architected software. Mentor and grow senior engineers through hands-on pairing, code review, system design sessions, and architectural coaching. Champion AI-first engineering practices - define how the team uses AI tools as first-class development instruments, and set the bar for reviewing and validating AI-generated output. Promote and govern engineering best practices across testing (TDD, unit, integration), security-by-default, and CI/CD pipeline quality. Partner with platform and infrastructure teams on cloud-native architecture across Azure and AWS, including containers, Kubernetes orchestration, and serverless patterns.

Requirements What We're Looking For Core Technical Requirements 8+ years of professional software development experience, with at least 2 years in a lead architect or principal engineer role on production systems. Deep mastery of C# and.NET Framework/Core, including ASP.NET, Web API, Entity Framework, and the.NET ecosystem at scale. Proven track record designing distributed, concurrent, scalable, and fault-tolerant systems serving enterprise customers in production. Expert-level SQL and database design skills: Microsoft SQL Server schema design, stored procedures, indexing, and query optimization with NoSQL exposure (MongoDB or equivalent). Hands-on experience with message brokers and event-driven systems: RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus, Kafka, or equivalents. Cloud platform fluency with Azure (App Service, Functions, Key Vault, Storage Accounts, Service Bus, Application Insights) and AWS, including cloud-native architectural patterns. Strong grounding in object-oriented design, SOLID principles, design patterns, and architectural patterns (CQRS, event sourcing, microservices, hexagonal architecture). Test-driven development mindset with strong discipline around unit testing, integration testing, and observable, measurable system quality. Experience with ORM layers (NHibernate, Dapper, Entity Framework) and principled approaches to data access at scale. Platform & Infrastructure Container orchestration experience with Docker and Kubernetes for microservices and cloud-native deployments. Caching architecture experience with Redis or equivalents, including cache invalidation strategies, TTL design,and read/write patterns under load. CI/CD pipeline design and governance using Azure DevOps or equivalent, including automated testing gates, release management, and deployment strategies. Experience integrating third-party APIs, external data sources, and enterprise systems at architectural scale. Familiarity with operational technology systems, field data collection, or industrial software platforms is a strong plus. AI & Innovation Hands-on experience with AI-first development - tools like Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Codex, or JetBrains AI. You direct AI output, review it to a production bar, and know when to override it. Exposure to LLM-powered features in production: RAG, evals, agent frameworks, tool use, feedback loops, or machine learning integration into operational workflows. Comfort operating in a dual-speed architecture environment, maintaining production-grade reliability for Industrial Group platforms while driving rapid experimentation in Venture Labs. Leadership & Communication Demonstrated ability to operate as the technical authority on complex, multi-team systems - setting direction, resolving ambiguity, and aligning engineers and stakeholders. Experience mentoring senior engineers and contributing measurably to team growth, not just output. Strong written and verbal English communication skills - able to convey architecture decisions clearly to the team. Comfortable in a remote, asynchronous, forward-deployed environment with shifting context across multiple products and teams simultaneously. Nice to Have Prior work in regulated industries: manufacturing, industrial operations, oil & gas, chemical, automotive, food manufacturing, or compliance-driven SaaS. Experience modernizing legacy .NET systems (Framework →.NET Core, monolith → services, on-premise → cloud). Background in high-velocity R&D environments: innovation labs, skunk works teams, incubators, or fast-moving startups inside enterprises. Background in operational software, field data platforms, or systems that bridge physical operations and enterprise software. Python as a secondary capability - polyglot engineers who reach for the right tool are valued across the Embrace portfolio. Exposure to operational data platforms, time-series data, or event-streaming architectures at industrial scale.