Principal Architect

$180,0000 - $200,000 + Bonus

The insurance industry runs on Vertafore. We equip agencies, MGAs, and carriers with the core digital systems, specialized AI, and data-driven foundation to eliminate distribution drag across the insurance lifecycle, spanning sales, servicing, and back-office operations.

Underpinned by unmatched speed and performance power, we are the trusted backbone that’s taking the insurance industry from friction to flow with Distribution Velocity – speed, performance, and trust - to drive growth at scale.

With over 95% of the top agencies and insurers and 50% of industry compliance transactions running through Vertafore, we lead at the intersection of innovation and trust, giving insurance professionals the confidence to transform and win in the AI era.

Our reach is global, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado, and offices across the U.S., Canada, and India.

As a Principal Architect you will provide technical direction and support for Vertafore’s corporate vision with both a deep and broad specialization in multiple domain areas. You will help the CTO and Enterprise Architecture Team unify products and systems to a common platform, define standard principles and frameworks for consistency across Vertafore, and provide knowledge and support to the Vertafore development community to increase adoption of enterprise or domain-specific standards.

Your communication skills will help disseminate our technical vision, guidelines, and technologies to other architects and developments teams, Product Management, Operations teams, and Executives across Vertafore.

Principal Architects translate business requirements into implementable technology solutions that balance cost, speed of delivery, and value while leveraging existing technologies and standards whenever possible.

As a hands‑on architect you will work with teams of engineers to transform the way our customers do business. The challenges you will face include designing our next generation of cloud based products, building micro service-based applications that can deliver flexible capabilities to different user bases, and providing technical leadership to teams to achieve Vertafore’s product vision through active mentoring, technical decision‑making, and driving and facilitating company‑wide collaboration.

Core Requirements and Responsibilities:

Essential job functions included but are not limited to the following:

• Architect and implement DevOps support for Highly scalable and available MicroServices-based applications, including build, deploy, management, and observability
• Provide support in upgrading DevOps infrastructure for existing products and greenfield development
• Coordinate with software development teams in developing and implementing software applications
• Mentor Sr. Engineers, Architects and Sr. Architects in both DevOps and application development
• Assist Managers in analyzing project requirements and project design
• Evaluate and recommend tools, technologies and processes ensuring highest quality product platform
• Collaborate with peer organizations to develop software applications
• Troubleshoot code level problems quickly and efficiently
• Assist in development of design documents, white papers, training documents and software architectural documents
• Other duties as assigned

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) expertise with a DevOps and QOS mindset is critical to success in this role
• Experience architecting, building, deploying, and managing microservice-based SaaS applications using Kubernetes, Docker, and related technologies in a multi‑tenant cloud environment
• Deep understanding of micro‑service-based architectures and building performing, scalable and durable solutions in cloud environments
• Solid experience in the administration and performance tuning of application stacks
• Cloud Application Design patterns and frameworks (for e.g. service discovery, circuit breaker, and 12 factor)
• Experience with various access control models and standards, including SSO and ID Federation
• Polyglot programming skills: Expert‑level Java and Python required, experience with JavaScript, and C# would be a plus
• Proficient in NoSQL and Relational Databases. PostgreSQL experience desired
• Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging systems (Kafka, Kinesis)
• Working knowledge in application, system, and network security
• Demonstrable interest in emerging / nascent technologies
• Highly proficient in communicating technical issues with developers, product owners, executives, and other stakeholders
• Experience acting as a technical liaison between Product Management, Development, and Operations
• Able to express complex concepts in plain language for greater understanding across teams / departments
• Experience with producing System Architecture diagrams and supporting documentation
• Extensive experience planning, leading, and reporting on code reviews

Qualifications:

• 10+ years’ experience designing and building software applications
• Full stack development experience

Additional Requirements and Details:

• Travel required up to 10% of the time.
• Located and working from an office location.
• Occasional lifting and/or moving up to 10 pounds.
• Frequent repetitive hand and arm movements required to operate a computer.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision (working on a computer, etc.).
• Frequent sitting and/or standing.