Solutions Architect - API, integration for banks

PortX; Mercer Island (WA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation with equity

Insurance (medical, dental, vision)

401(k)

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

PortX is seeking a Solutions Architect to lead discovery, scope engagements, and design against the PortX platform and ORCA reference architecture. You will govern delivery to ensure the implementation ships on the platform with minimal bespoke code.

In this customer-facing role you will build trusted-advisor relationships, run workshops and architecture reviews, and translate business problems into scalable, reusable platform-native solutions leveraging AI-assisted tooling and AWS/Kubernetes

Qualifications

• Strong enterprise integration and implementation experience: APIs, event-driven architecture, integration platforms/iPaaS.
• Demonstrated customer-facing skills: discovery, workshop facilitation, estimation, executive communication.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted engineering and code generation, with a view on delivery acceleration.

Responsibilities

• Lead discovery, scoping, solution design, and estimation for integration engagements; ensure scalable, supportable, and commercially sound solutions.
• Engage directly with customers across pre-sales and delivery: build trusted-advisor relationships and translate business problems into platform-native solutions.
• Facilitate workshops, architecture reviews, and executive presentations; govern written solution artifacts and go-live criteria.

Tools

OpenAPI

Git

Docker

Job description

Solutions Architect

PortX is a leading AI-powered data and integration company for modern banking, bringing systems together and data to life through our unified platform for modern integration, governed customer 360 data, and next-generation payments.

We're in strong growth mode, with new opportunities for Solutions Architects, working in a high-impact environment, with a culture that's open and rewarding, so it's a great time to join.

About the role

PortX Solutions Architects are consultants first, engineers second. You are the customer-facing owner of solution shape: you run discovery, scope the engagement, design against the PortX platform and ORCA reference architecture, and govern delivery so the implementation ships on the platform — not around it.

The measure of a great SA here is not the code you write; it's how little bespoke code the engagement needs, how fast delivery squads become self-sufficient, and how much of what you design becomes a reusable, sellable asset.

Consulting & customer leadership

• Lead discovery, scoping, solution design, and estimation for integration engagements, ensuring solutions are scalable, supportable, and commercially sound — estimates tie to standard deliverables and templated effort, not open-ended custom builds.
• Engage directly with customers across pre-sales and delivery: build trusted-advisor relationships, elicit the business problem behind the stated requirement, and translate it into the smallest platform-native solution that solves it.
• Facilitate customer workshops, architecture reviews, whiteboarding sessions, and executive presentations; communicate solution designs and trade-offs clearly to both technical and business audiences.
• Own the written solution artifacts — Solutions Design Documents, ADRs, estimates, and definition-of-done criteria — to a quality standard fit for architecture review and customer sign-off.

Architecture & governance

• Act as SME for the PortX platform (Integration Manager, ORCA, connector library) and end-to-end integration lifecycle, providing architectural guidance from intake through go-live and handover.
• Design template-first: default to fixed-price-engineering (FPE) patterns, reusable connectors, and configuration over custom code. Bespoke code is an explicit, justified exception — documented as an ADR and taken through architecture review — never a default.
• Enforce ORCA contract fidelity and platform conventions across implementations; contribute findings and standards back through the Architecture Review Council.
• Gate solution quality at intake: validate that scope, requirements, and estimates are sound before delivery commits, and flag misfit deals early.

Enablement & Leverage

• Mentor and coach PortX and customer development teams; the goal is squads that design, build, and support integrations with progressively less SA involvement — SA time concentrates at solution shape and review, not implementation.
• Convert engagement work into product: every project should leave behind a reusable asset — a connector, template, mapping, pattern, or documented playbook — that reduces the cost of the next similar engagement.
• Use AI tooling as a first-class delivery instrument: code generation against templates, spec-driven scaffolding, automated conformance scoring, and documentation generation. Fluency here is expected, not optional.
• Drive continuous improvement across integration patterns, delivery methodology, estimation models, tooling, and documentation.

Hands-on credibility

• Lead by example through hands-on problem solving where it unblocks the team — spikes, reference implementations, and rescue work — while resisting becoming the delivery bottleneck.

Skills & experience required

• Strong enterprise integration and implementation experience: APIs, event-driven architecture, integration platforms/iPaaS; you have led engagements, not just built inside them.
• Demonstrated customer-facing skills: discovery, workshop facilitation, estimation, executive communication, and managing scope with commercial awareness.
• Fluency reading and reviewing Java/Spring Boot code well enough to govern quality, review PRs, and prototype — this role designs and governs more than it codes.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted engineering (code generation, agentic tooling, spec-to-code workflows) and a point of view on where it accelerates delivery safely.
• Working knowledge of containerization, Kubernetes/GitOps-style deployment, and AWS.
• Experience with OpenAPI-first design, consuming and specifying web services, Git, and standard build tooling.

Strongly preferred

• Banking, credit union, or payments domain experience (core banking systems, digital banking, ACH/ISO 20022).
• Experience productizing services delivery: templates, SDKs, connector libraries, fixed-price packaging.
• Experience standing up or operating architecture governance (review boards, ADR practice, conformance standards).

What success looks like (first 90 days)

• Engagements you architect ship on templated/FPE patterns with zero unreviewed bespoke code.
• Delivery squads enable you to handle standard integrations end-to-end without SA escalation.
• Your engagements produce reusable connectors and templates adopted by subsequent projects.
• Estimation accuracy improves because your designs map to known, repeatable units of work.

Required Soft Skills

• Strong problem-solving skills
• Excellent spoken and written English communication skills
• Highly organized, with strong prioritization and time management skills
• Flexible and responsive, with the ability to adapt to changing priorities and tight deadlines
• Confident, customer-facing presence with the ability to build trust and engagement

This is a chance to join a fast-growing company at the forefront of AI-powered banking integration and data innovation. You will work in a collaborative, high-impact environment where your technical expertise and customer-facing skills directly influence business growth and customer success. At this stage, ownership isn't a talking point - it's the job. You'll drive your space end to end, which means your time and availability flex with what the work actually needs, not a fixed clock. If that type of environment is energizing rather than exhausting, you'll thrive here.

PortX Principles

• Do Everything with Purpose
• Challenge the Ordinary
• Check your Ego at the Door

Benefits

• Competitive compensation: attractive equity opportunities at a venture-backed startup
• High Impact Role: Have a direct and immediate impact on revenue & scaling the business
• Insurance (medical, dental, vision)
• 401(k)
• Unlimited PTO
• Be a part of a collaborative and highly motivated team culture where your voice is heard and you're not just a number in a big company

US Citizenship required - No Visa Sponsorship available