Senior Backend Architect & Platform Leader

ITHAKA; New City (NY); On-site; USD 129,000 - 161,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision plans

Retirement contribution

Parental leave

Paid time off

Public holidays

Job summary

ITHAKA is seeking Lead / Principal Software Engineers to shape the technology vision for JSTOR’s Books and Royalty Payments backend. You will lead architecture, contribute hands-on, and influence multiple engineering teams to build scalable digital book fulfillment and payment platforms.

You will mentor engineers, drive backend innovation, and partner with product teams to align technical direction with business goals.

Qualifications

• Backend software engineering with strong technical leadership.
• Experience designing distributed backend systems and APIs.
• Mentor engineers and drive architecture reviews.
• Balance long-term platform goals with near-term delivery.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year backend strategy and roadmap for Books and royalties.
• Lead architectural decisions across teams with influence, not authority.
• Design scalable, highly available backend services and data pipelines.
• Drive observability, reliability, and platform operations.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering excellence.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

Distributed systems

Architectural leadership

API design

Code review

Mentoring

Tools

MySQL

Redis

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Job description

ITHAKA is seeking Lead / Principal Software Engineers to shape the technology vision for JSTOR’s Books and Royalty Payments backend. You will lead architecture, contribute hands-on, and influence multiple engineering teams to build scalable digital book fulfillment and payment platforms.

You will mentor engineers, drive backend innovation, and partner with product teams to align technical direction with business goals.