Principal Software Engineer

Workato; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Workato in Amsterdam seeks an experienced System Architect to lead platform architecture, crafting scalable, secure, and cost-effective systems and driving critical architectural decisions across the product.

You will design microservices, mentor engineers, define roadmaps, and collaborate with Product, Security, and SRE teams to ensure zero-downtime deployments and robust data security.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building scalable distributed systems with 3+ years in System/Platform Architect roles.
• Proven experience architecting large microservice environments (100+ services) and monoliths.
• Strong hands-on Golang coding and production-grade development.
• Familiarity with Protocol Buffers, gRPC, WebSockets, Kafka, PostgreSQL.
• Knowledge of OAuth 2.0/OIDC, JWT, mTLS, and zero-trust security architecture.

Responsibilities

• Design microservices and platform features from concept to production-ready specs.
• Create technical designs and PoCs in Golang; plan migration of legacy components.
• Architect secure, fault-tolerant systems with automated failover and encryption.
• Lead architecture reviews and drive cross-team technical decisions.
• Mentor engineers and write ADRs, runbooks, and API specs.

Skills

Distributed systems

Golang

System architecture

Kubernetes

Security design

APIs & microservices

Protobufs/gRPC

Design patterns

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

Kafka

PostgreSQL

Job description

Why join us?

Ultimately, Workato believes in fostering a flexible, trust-oriented culture that empowers everyone to take full ownership of their roles. We are driven by innovation and looking for team players who want to actively build our company. But, we also believe in balancing productivity with self-care. That’s why we offer all of our employees a vibrant and dynamic work environment along with a multitude of benefits they can enjoy inside and outside of their work lives.

Responsibilities

We are looking for an exceptional System Architect to lead the design and evolution of our platform architecture. This is a hands‑on role requiring deep technical expertise in building secure, scalable, and cost‑efficient systems. You will be responsible for critical architectural decisions affecting system performance, security, reliability, and modularity across our entire platform.

In this role, you will also be responsible to:

Architecture & Design

• - Design microservices and platform features from concept to production‑ready specifications
• - Create technical designs for complex system components and develop proof‑of‑concepts in Golang
• - Architect secure, fault‑tolerant systems with automated failover, circuit breakers, and end‑to‑end encryption
• - Analyze existing system architecture to understand current implementations and plan gradual replacement of legacy components
• - Plan implementation phases, migration strategies, and feature deprecation timelines

Architectural Governance & Collaboration

• - Review and approve architectural designs from engineering teams with detailed feedback
• - Lead architecture review sessions and facilitate technical decision‑making across teams
• - Partner with Product Managers, Dev Leads, Security, SRE and Infrastructure teams to establish platform‑wide standards
• - Lead threat modeling exercises and drive technical consensus for platform‑wide initiatives
• - Mentor engineers on architectural best practices and resolve complex technical challenges

Documentation & Planning

• - Write comprehensive technical documentation including ADRs, design documents, runbooks, and API specifications
• - Create visual system diagrams and research technical solutions from diverse sources
• - Design zero‑downtime migration strategies and define acceptance criteria for architectural changes

Requirements

Qualifications / Experience / Technical Skills

• - 8+ years building scalable distributed systems, with 3+ years in System/Platform Architect roles
• - Proven experience architecting both large microservice environments (100+ services) and monolithic applications
• - Strong hands‑on Golang coding skills - must write production‑quality code
• - Communication & Data: Protocol Buffers, gRPC, WebSockets, Kafka event streaming, PostgreSQL (partitioning, replication, HA)
• - Security & Authentication: OAuth 2.0/OIDC, JWT, mTLS, data encryption, public key cryptography, zero‑trust architecture
• - Infrastructure & Operations: Working knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), distributed systems patterns (Saga, circuit breakers, retries)
• - Scale: Experience with systems handling millions of requests/events per day
• - Exceptional technical writing and communication abilities for diverse audiences
• - Experience planning phased implementations and leading complex cross‑team projects
• - Proven track record with feature flags, gradual rollouts, and zero‑downtime deployments
• - Ability to facilitate architectural decision‑making and create technical roadmaps
• - Mentorship mindset and cost analysis capabilities
• - Experience with AI-assisted workflows, particularly in system analysis and hunting for inconsistencies and corner cases.

Nice to Have

• - Additional Languages: Ruby, Rust, Python, Java, C++, Kotlin-multiplatform
• - Advanced Security: Key Management Systems (HSM, AWS KMS), Secrets Management (Vault), specific crypto algorithms
• - Extended Infrastructure: Service mesh (Istio, Linkerd), NoSQL databases, Redis clustering, stream processing (Flink, Spark)
• - Cloud & Compliance: AWS/GCP/Azure expertise, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC2

Community: Open source contributions, conference speaking, technical writing 8+ years building scalable distributed systems, 3+ years in System/Platform Architect roles, Experience architecting large microservice environments (100+ services) and monolithic applications, Strong hands‑on Golang coding skills, Proficiency in Protocol Buffers, gRPC, WebSockets, Kafka, and PostgreSQL, Knowledge of OAuth 2.0/OIDC, JWT, mTLS, and zero‑trust architecture, Working knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, and Terraform, Experience with systems handling millions of requests/events per day, Exceptional technical writing and communication abilities, Experience planning phased implementations and leading complex cross‑team projects, Track record with feature flags, gradual rollouts, and zero‑downtime deployments, Ability to facilitate architectural decision‑making and create technical roadmaps, Mentorship mindset and cost analysis capabilities, Experience with AI-assisted workflows for system analysis