Senior Architect: AI-Driven, Scalable Platform Leader

Vaco; Dublin (OH); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Vaco by Highspring is seeking a hands-on Sr. Architect in Central Ohio to lead the evolution of a resource-sharing platform that manages digital and licensed assets.

This hybrid, direct-hire role requires current residence in Central Ohio; relocation is not available. The role shapes the technical direction for AI-enabled capabilities and data-driven services, partnering with Engineering, Product, and Technology to deliver scalable, secure solutions that drive real business value.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years of progressive software engineering, architecture, or technical leadership.
• Current residence in Central Ohio and hybrid work ability.
• Proven experience designing, evolving, and supporting large-scale, distributed software systems.
• Strong software architecture background in SaaS or enterprise software environments.
• Experience with big data, data-intensive systems, data platforms, event streaming, analytics, or high-volume transactional systems.
• Ability to translate product strategy and business goals into technical roadmaps, architecture plans, and implementation approaches.
• Experience leading or supporting modernization initiatives in complex environments.
• Strong understanding of architectural tradeoffs across scalability, reliability, security, cost, performance, maintainability, and delivery speed.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted engineering tools (Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot).

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate a multi-year technical architecture roadmap aligned to product strategy and platform modernization priorities.
• Lead the architectural design and evolution of large-scale resource-sharing software across digital and licensed assets.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Technology leadership to translate business requirements into scalable, secure solutions.
• Guide modernization initiatives involving distributed systems, APIs, cloud-native approaches, event-driven architectures, data platforms, and platform engineering.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for complex system design decisions, integration strategies, modernization plans, and technology investments.
• Establish architectural standards, reference patterns, decision records, and lightweight documentation that improve consistency.
• Identify technical debt, architectural risks, operational concerns, and cross-team dependencies; drive remediation plans.
• Champion high-quality system design with focus on reliability, observability, security, availability, performance, and maintainability.
• Help engineering teams improve developer productivity, delivery speed, platform capabilities, automation, and software quality.
• Evaluate and introduce emerging technologies where value is measurable, especially AI-assisted development and autonomous AI-agent workflows.
• Contribute to the development of AI-enabled software capabilities and support teams using tools like Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot.
• Partner with engineering leaders to improve architecture review practices, engineering effectiveness, and technical decision-making.
• Mentor engineers, technical leads, and engineering managers; foster architectural judgment and a culture of continuous improvement.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and tradeoffs clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

Skills

Software architecture

Technical leadership

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

API design

AI-enabled capabilities

Mentoring

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Claude

Cursor

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Vaco by Highspring is seeking a hands-on Sr. Architect in Central Ohio to lead the evolution of a resource-sharing platform that manages digital and licensed assets.

This hybrid, direct-hire role requires current residence in Central Ohio; relocation is not available. The role shapes the technical direction for AI-enabled capabilities and data-driven services, partnering with Engineering, Product, and Technology to deliver scalable, secure solutions that drive real business value.