Principal Backend Architect / Engineer (C#/.NET, Azure)

OpenKrill; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Openkrill is seeking an experienced Backend Architect to define server-side architecture across all products. The role focuses on migrating from a monolith to well-bounded services, enforcing standards, and designing robust APIs within an Azure-centric environment.

The candidate will work closely with a Data Architect on performance, access patterns, and integrations, while actively coding and mentoring engineers. Daily use of agentic AI tools is required.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in backend development/engineering, with architecture or leadership roles.

Responsibilities

• Define server-side architecture for all products and lead migration from monolith to bounded services.
• Establish and enforce standards, shared libraries, service templates, and API/contract design.
• Define event-driven architecture using Azure Service Bus with delivery guarantees, retries, and idempotency.
• Collaborate with Data Architect on transactional boundaries, access patterns, and performance.
• Lead by example in daily use of agentic AI tools to raise the team's technical bar.
• Author ADRs, conduct code reviews, mentor engineers, participate in incident response, and contribute to quarterly planning.

Skills

C# / .NET

Azure cloud

PostgreSQL

Cosmos DB

Snowflake

CI/CD

Event-driven

Async messaging

AI tools daily use

Hands-on coding

Tools

Azure Functions

Azure Service Bus

Data Factory

Job description

Responsibilities:

• Backend Architecture & Decomposition: Define the server-side architecture for all products and lead the migration and incremental engineering from the monolith toward well-bounded services.
• Standards & Platform Capabilities: Establish and enforce standards, shared libraries, service templates, and API/contract design (versioning and backward compatibility).
• Event-Driven Architecture: Define the event-driven architecture using Azure Service Bus (delivery guarantees, retries, idempotency, and failure/poison message handling).
• Data Collaboration: Work closely with the Data Architect on transactional boundaries, access patterns, query performance, and client/partner integrations.
• AI-Assisted (Agentic) Engineering: Lead by example in the daily use of agentic AI tools within development and elevate the team's overall technical bar.
• Technical Leadership: Author ADRs (Architecture Decision Records), conduct code reviews (key PRs), mentor engineers, participate in incident response, and contribute to quarterly planning.

Must-Have Requirements:

• Experience: 10+ years in backend development/engineering, with several years in formal architecture or technical leadership roles.
• Core Stack: Deep mastery of C# / .NET and proven hands-on experience in Azure (Azure Functions, Azure Service Bus, Data Factory).
• Databases & Data Access: Hands-on experience with PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB, and Snowflake, alongside CI/CD and DevOps practices.
• Monolith Decomposition: Real, demonstrable experience migrating or decomposing monoliths incrementally (safe, reversible steps rather than greenfield rewrites).
• Event Architecture & APIs: Strong background in asynchronous messaging, idempotency, dead-lettering, and robust API design.
• DAILY USE OF AGENTIC AI (Hard Requirement): Hands-on, daily use of tools such as Claude, Claude Code, or similar, plus experience building with AI (agents, reusable skills, MCP servers, evaluations).
• Hands-On Profile: This is not a purely management or theoretical architecture role; the candidate must actively write code and build solutions.