Senior Platform Architect & Hands-On Lead Developer

Publicis Groupe; Toronto; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Gym membership

Financial planner access

Parental leave top‑up

Defined contribution pension

Job summary

Saatchi & Saatchi is seeking a Lead Developer to architect and deliver an innovative AI platform initiative. You will drive the technical direction across frontend, backend, and agentic services while mentoring engineers and ensuring reliability.

A hands‑on builder, you will balance architecture with practical delivery and client conversations, shaping secure, scalable systems. You will collaborate with PMs and Directors to map product intent to credible technical plans, champion vendor‑neutral

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering with hands‑on leadership on production systems.
• Experience delivering multi‑service, multi‑tier platforms, not just a single service.
• Strong backend depth in Java/Spring Boot, Python/FastAPI, Node, Go, or .NET; able to ramp others.
• Solid frontend literacy with React/TypeScript and state management.
• Cloud architecture background, preferably GCP with GKE.
• Deep understanding of API design and distributed systems; robust security and data protection.
• Experience with containerization, Kubernetes, and modern CI/CD practices.
• Hands‑on with AI/LLM agents, RAG, tool integration, or a credible plan to get there.
• Comfortable in Agile environments and clear, evidence‑based communication.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction across the platform’s tiers — frontend, backend, AI services, data, and integrations.
• Translate product intent into a credible technical plan with the Senior Technical PM and Program Director.
• Lead architecture and design reviews and establish vendor‑neutral patterns.
• Remain hands‑on across tier boundaries and review code for clarity, testability, security, and operability.
• Mentor mid‑level and senior engineers and guide technical decisions and on‑call experiences.
• Partner with Platform Engineer on reliability, capacity, observability, and incident response.
• Drive integration architecture with internal and external systems using API‑first and event‑driven patterns.

Skills

Architectural leadership

Backend development

Frontend development

Cloud architecture

API design

AI/LLM systems

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Review and mentoring

Agile delivery

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

Kustomize

Gang of LangGraph/ADK (language models)

Google Vertex AI

OpenAI/LLM providers

Job description

Saatchi & Saatchi is seeking a Lead Developer to architect and deliver an innovative AI platform initiative. You will drive the technical direction across frontend, backend, and agentic services while mentoring engineers and ensuring reliability.

A hands‑on builder, you will balance architecture with practical delivery and client conversations, shaping secure, scalable systems. You will collaborate with PMs and Directors to map product intent to credible technical plans, champion vendor‑neutral