Senior Staff Platform Architect

Aiven; Helsinki; Hybrid; EUR 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity plan

Hybrid work policy

Equipment for success

Professional Development Budget

Employee Assistance Program

Global Time Off Commitment

Country-specific benefits

Job summary

Aiven in Helsinki is seeking a senior individual-contributor to lead cross-domain architecture and the 10x scaling initiative with hands-on technical depth. You will set direction, resolve architectural conflicts across domains, and drive complex, high-impact changes that shape the platform’s evolution.

This role emphasizes technical leadership over management, collaborating with global teams and executives. Hybrid work policy and equity benefits accompany the role.

Qualifications

• Track Record: operate at Staff/Senior Staff/Principal level in distributed systems, infrastructure, or platform engineering, ideally at a large-scale operation.
• Direction + Depth: demonstrate ability to set architectural direction across teams and personally deliver deep technical work.
• Cross-Team Influence: experience resolving architectural disagreements between teams that don't share a manager, earning buy-in through technical credibility.
• Ambiguity: comfortable operating with significant ambiguity on multi-quarter, cross-domain initiatives where the roadmap is being defined as the work happens.
• Communication: strong written and verbal communication; able to translate deep technical judgement into actionable direction for engineers and executives.
• Architecture Function Background (nice-to-have): prior experience in an architecture function rather than a purely product-engineering role.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for cross-domain architecture initiatives that no single service team owns, particularly the 10x scaling effort and related long-horizon platform decisions.
• Design and drive the most complex, high-risk technical changes impacting the whole company as a hands-on contributor.
• Maintain deep, current hands-on technical expertise to personally write, debug, and review the most difficult systems designs and code.
• Identify and resolve architectural conflicts or misalignment between service domains, making binding technical calls when domains would otherwise diverge or duplicate effort.
• Coordinate complex technical evolution efforts that span multiple domains and multi-quarter timelines, ensuring changes land coherently rather than as isolated domain-level decisions.
• Act as the senior technical authority and point of escalation for architecture decisions requiring deep systems expertise and cross-team credibility.
• Partner with engineering leads and Executive Team Members to translate strategic direction and scaling targets into sequenced roadmaps.
• Mentor and raise the technical bar of senior engineers working on cross-domain problems, without formal management responsibility.

Job description

We're a global team of over 400 people, working together to push the boundaries of open-source technology and multi-cloud solutions. Our vision is to help developers, builders, and creators bring their ideas to life with speed and simplicity, by providing a cloud data platform that makes open-source databases, search, streaming, and application infrastructure easily accessible to everyone.

The Role:

Aiven is re-establishing a dedicated Architecture function to own the hardest, longest-horizon technical decisions across our platform - the cross-domain problems that no single service team is positioned to solve alone. This role is the senior technical anchor of that function, driving our 10x scaling initiative and the broader coordination of complex technical (r)evolution across service domains.

This is a senior individual-contributor role, not a management position. We're looking for someone who combines architectural breadth with genuine hands-on technical depth: someone who can set direction for the organization and then personally be part of the hardest engineering work required to prove it out.

What You'll Do:

• Set technical direction for cross-domain architecture initiatives that no single service team owns, particularly the "10x scaling" effort and related long-horizon platform decisions.
• Design and drive the most complex, high-risk technical changes impacting the whole company, as a hands-on contributor rather than someone who delegates the hardest problems.
• Maintain deep, current hands-on technical expertise, sufficient to personally write, debug, and review the most difficult systems designs and code in the areas this role touches.
• Identify and resolve architectural conflicts or misalignment between service domains, making binding technical calls where domains would otherwise diverge or duplicate effort.
• Coordinate complex technical evolution efforts that span multiple domains and multi-quarter timelines, ensuring changes land coherently rather than as isolated domain-level decisions.
• Act as the senior technical authority and point of escalation for architecture decisions that require deep systems expertise and cross-team credibility to resolve.
• Partner with engineering leads and Executive Team Members across domains to translate strategic direction and scaling targets into concrete, sequenced technical roadmaps.
• Mentor and raise the technical bar of senior engineers working on cross-domain problems, without formal management responsibility.

What We're Looking For:

• Track Record: A track record of operating at Staff/Senior Staff/Principal level (or equivalent) in distributed systems, infrastructure, or platform engineering, ideally at a large-scale operation.
• Direction + Depth: Demonstrated ability to both set architectural direction across teams and personally deliver deep technical work.
• Cross-Team Influence: Experience resolving architectural disagreements between teams that don't share a manager, and earning buy-in through technical credibility rather than positional authority.
• Ambiguity: Comfort operating with significant ambiguity on multi-quarter, cross-domain initiatives where the roadmap is being defined as the work happens.
• Communication: Strong written and verbal communication; this role needs to translate deep technical judgment into direction that engineering leads and executives can act on.
• Architecture Function Background (nice-to-have): Prior experience in an architecture function (rather than a purely product-engineering role).

Global Benefits:

Our global benefits are designed to help you thrive and grow, personally and professionally:

• Participate in Aiven's equity plan.
• Balance work and life with our hybrid work policy.
• Choose the equipment you need to set yourself up for success.
• Use your Professional Development Plan budget for learning opportunities.
• Receive holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program.
• Inquire about our Global Time Off Commitment (Parental and Sick Leave, as well as Personal Time)
• Enjoy country-specific benefits for our global cast.

Equal Opportunities:

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at [e-mail].