Principal Architect

Meniga; Warszawa; Hybrid; PLN 290,000 - 391,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private healthcare

Meal & phone allowance

ESOPs

Direct reporting to CTO

Job summary

Meniga in Poland seeks a Principle Architect to own the architecture of the entire platform, define the structure of services, and set clear boundaries for engineers, reporting directly to the CTO.

You will lead the platform transformation—moving from on‑prem to cloud, migrating databases, and embedding AI as a first‑class design concern across data pipelines and the SDLC.

Qualifications

• Architect at scale for a distributed, data-heavy platform in production.
• Experience transforming a real system without business disruption.
• Deep knowledge of .NET stack and data stores (MSSQL/PostgreSQL).
• Ability to write clear RFCs and public technical communication.
• Credible with engineers and with banking customers.

Responsibilities

• Own the target architecture and set service boundaries for engineers.
• Drive the platform transformation from on-prem to cloud and data migrations.
• Write decisions down as RFCs/ADRs and communicate trade-offs clearly.
• Embed AI as a first-class design concern across services and pipelines.

Skills

Architect at scale

Transformation experience

Strong technical writing

AI-native mindset

Tools

C# / .NET

MSSQL

PostgreSQL

Azure

Kafka

Kubernetes

Helm Charts

Job description

Meniga builds financial intelligence for the world's leading banks - 100M+ users, 30+ countries. We're not the brand on the app. We're the layer underneath it - the one that makes the data meaningful, the experience personal, and the bank worth opening. Meniga’s offices are in London, Reykjavik, Warsaw and Cairo.

PRINCIPLE ARCHITECT

Financial intelligence for 100M+ users across the world's leading banks

THE WORK

You own the architecture of the entire Meniga platform - services, data, integrations, deployment model, and the boundaries between them. You report directly to the CTO. You set the direction, you make the hard calls, and you are accountable for whether the architecture holds as the business scales.

This is not a review-and-advise role. You draft the target architecture, you defend it to engineering and to customers, and you stay close enough to the implementation to course-correct early.

The context: Meniga is in the middle of a platform transformation - performance, architecture, and AI, across systems that run inside the world's largest banks. The transformation is real, funded, and already underway. Your job is to shape what comes out the other side - and to make sure what engineering ships today still fits three years from now.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own the target architecture - define the platform’s structure, set the boundaries between services, and make the calls that other engineers can build to with confidence

• Drive the transformation - on-prem to cloud, MSSQL to PostgreSQL, legacy to platform. You don’t manage the programme - you shape the technical outcome and stay close enough to catch drift early

• Write the decisions down - RFCs, ADRs, technical strategy. If the direction only lives in your head, it doesn’t exist yet. You write with the clarity that ends debates

• Embed AI into the architecture - not as a feature layer, but as a first-class design concern across services, data pipelines, and the SDLC itself

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• Architect at scale - you've owned the architecture of a distributed, data-heavy platform in production with serious customers - not just designed one on a whiteboard

• Transformation experience - you've moved a real system from one architecture to another without stopping the business, and you can talk honestly about what it cost

• Deep in .NET and data - C# / .NET, both MSSQL and PostgreSQL, real experience with on-premises and cloud. You can read any of our code and tell us what's wrong with it

• Writes with authority - RFCs, decision records, public technical communication. If you can't write the decision down clearly, it isn't a decision yet

• Credible to engineers and to customers - bank architects will sit across from you. So will your own team. Both need to come away trusting the direction

• AI-native - you're actively reasoning about where AI changes the architecture - not bolting it on afterward (currently Cursor & Claude Code)

THE STACK

Must have: C# / .NET · MSSQL · PostgreSQL · Azure · Kafka · Kubernetes · Helm Charts · distributed systems at scale

Nice to have: RabbitMQ · Terraform · GCP · Python · Fintech or other regulated industry

Most systems are on-premises at client sites and actively migrating toward cloud. You'll make calls in both worlds.

WHAT YOU'LL GET

• Competitive salary + meaningful equity: B2B, 26-35k PLN + VAT, + ESOPs

• Hybrid - 2 days in office, 3 remote days

• Private healthcare, fitness, meal & phone allowance

• Direct reporting line to the CTO and a seat where the technical direction is actually set

• Authority matched by accountability - you set the direction and you own the outcome

• A platform used by 100M+ people across the world's leading banks

HOW WE HIRE

1. Screening - 30 min call. The transformations you've led and what you learned.
2. Meet the CTO - 60 min. How you think about architecture, trade-offs, and change at scale.
3. Architecture deep-dive - 90 min. One real architectural problem from our platform. No theatre, no trick questions. AI tools are welcome.
4. Decision/ offer within 10 days of the final interview.