Accelerant is seeking a Product Area Lead Architect to provide hands on, operational architectural leadership for our Insights, Analytics & Workflows product area. This role operates at a Principal level, influencing architecture and execution across multiple autonomous product teams. You will work closely with team architects, engineering managers, product managers, and Data Science teams to ensure teams move fast without fragmenting the architecture.This is not an ivory tower architecture role. It is highly collaborative, pragmatic, and operational, focused on identifying architectural gaps, managing dependencies, and enabling teams to execute confidently within a shared architectural framework. You will champion standards based architecture, leveraging web standards, open protocols, and industry conventions to build interoperable, accessible, and future proof systems.Key ResponsibilitiesOperational Architectural LeadershipEnsure architectural alignment across product teams, partnering closely with team architects and engineering managersProactively identify architectural gaps, technical debt, and quality risks; drive resolution through collaboration and influenceManage cross team technical dependencies to enable independent, parallel executionTranslate architectural strategy into clear, actionable guidance that teams can apply sprint by sprintCross Team Coordination & AlignmentFacilitate architectural discussions and resolve technical conflicts across teams through principled, pragmatic decision makingAct as an escalation point for complex cross team technical challengesEnsure architectural decisions are clearly communicated, understood, and consistently appliedDesign and InnovationDefine and maintain architectural patterns across backend services, APIs, data platforms, and front end systemsDesign scalable, resilient systems for analytics, workflow orchestration, and intelligence featuresGuide decomposition of legacy systems into well defined services and domainsEvaluate technologies and data stores, favoring open standards and long term maintainabilityArchitect distributed systems with focus on reliability, fault tolerance, and scalabilityStandards & GovernanceEstablish API design standards ensuring consistency, discoverability, and ease of integrationDefine front end standards prioritizing web platform capabilities, progressive enhancement, and accessibility (WCAG)Create governance frameworks that balance standardization with team autonomyDrive adoption of industry standards (OAuth2, OpenID Connect, OpenTelemetry, JSON:API) over proprietary alternativesTechnical LeadershipPartner with engineering teams on design reviews, PR reviews, and implementation guidanceEstablish standards for cross cutting concerns: API versioning, auth, observability, error handling, and resiliency patternsCollaborate with platform and DevOps teams on containerization, CI/CD, and cloud native deploymentProduce clear technical design documentation that drives alignment and knowledge sharingMentor engineers and raise the overall architectural maturity of the organizationGenAI, ML & AI ArchitectureArchitect customer facing GenAI features using LLMs, including RAG pipelines, prompt engineering frameworks, and conversational AI interfacesDefine patterns for ML model integration: serving endpoints, API contracts, versioning, and health monitoringPartner with Data Science to translate models into production grade features with clear integration contracts and deployment workflowsEstablish standards for responsible AI, including evaluation criteria, privacy guardrails, and LLM output validationAI Transformation & Productivity LeadershipScale AI driven development workflows across teams, ensuring engineers leverage AI coding tools effectivelyGuide team architects and coach senior engineers on using AI tools to enhance productivity and code qualityWork hands on with teams to identify opportunities for AI to solve operational challenges and improve velocitySolution Evaluation & Quality AssuranceEvaluate and recommend technologies to enhance capabilities across analytics, workflow, and intelligence domainsEnsure architectural integrity through code reviews, assessments, and continuous monitoringProactively identify technical risks and devise strategies for reliability, security, and performanceTechnical RequirementsFull Stack SaaS Architecture:Strong proficiency in modern JavaScript/TypeScript and Node.jsDeep knowledge of web platform fundamentals and browser native capabilitiesExperience designing and evolving well structured APIs for platform integrationsArchitectural & Systems Thinking:Deep knowledge of architecture principles, design patterns, and distributed systemsProven ability to make pragmatic tradeoffs in complex, evolving systemsExperience in cloud native environments, preferably AWSAI Enabled Engineering:Demonstrated experience using AI coding tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, etc.)Understanding of AI applications for development productivity and code quality improvementQualifications8 to 12+ years in software engineering and architecture rolesProven experience operating across multiple agile teams in an architectural leadership capacityTrack record of managing cross team dependencies and bridging architectural vision with day to day executionProven ability to drive AI adoption and transformation within engineering organizationsExcellent communication and facilitation skills with ability to align work across distributed teamsPragmatic, operational mindset with strong problem solving abilitiesBachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related fieldAbout AccelerantAccelerant is a data-driven risk exchange connecting underwriters of specialty insurance risk with risk capital providers. Accelerant was founded in 2018 by a group of longtime insurance industry executives and technology experts who shared a vision of rebuilding the way risk is exchanged – so that it works better, for everyone. The Accelerant risk exchange does business across more than 20 different countries and 250 specialty products, and we are proud that our insurers have been awarded an AM Best A- (Excellent) rating.
7 days ago