Architect

Role Profile: ArchitectCompany: TestReach Location: Dublin, IrelandReports to: CEOEmployment Type: PERMAt TestReach, we are a team of bright, creative and dedicated individuals passionate about leveraging technology to enhance the assessment experience for test-takers and examining bodies alike. Our mission is to provide cutting-edge technology and high-quality services to facilitate large-scale, high-stakes exams in a world with ever-growing demands for education, qualifications, certifications and compliance.Role OverviewThe Architect at TestReach is responsible for defining and evolving the technical architecture of the TestReach platform, ensuring it is scalable, secure, resilient and aligned with long-term business objectives.This role provides architectural leadership across engineering teams, guiding design decisions, reviewing implementations and ensuring consistency in standards and best practices.The Architect plays a critical role in balancing innovation, delivery speed, technical debt and long-term platform sustainability in a high-stakes online assessment environment.This is a highly technical, hands-on role requiring deep architectural expertise and the ability to influence across distributed teams.Key ResponsibilitiesPlatform Architecture & Technical StrategyDefine and maintain the target architecture for the TestReach platform.Establish architectural principles, standards and design patterns.Ensure alignment between product strategy and technical direction.Identify and mitigate architectural risks that may impact scalability or security.Contribute to long-term technical roadmap planning.Scalability, Reliability & SecurityEnsure the platform supports high-volume, high-stakes exam sittings with strong uptime and performance.Lead architectural decisions relating to performance, resilience and disaster recovery.Embed security-by-design principles across systems.Validate non-functional requirements (NFRs) including performance, availability, scalability and compliance.Technical Leadership & GovernanceReview and approve major technical designs and implementation approaches.Provide guidance on complex architectural challenges and trade-offs.Support engineering teams in resolving deep technical issues.Promote consistency in engineering standards, documentation and code quality.Help manage and reduce technical debt strategically.Cloud & Infrastructure ArchitectureLead decisions relating to cloud architecture and infrastructure design.Ensure best practices in CI/CD, observability, monitoring and deployment patterns.Guide infrastructure scalability and automation strategies.Evaluate and recommend tooling, frameworks and platforms.Data & Integration ArchitectureDefine data architecture standards, including data flow, storage and governance.Support integration architecture for enterprise clients and partner systems.Ensure secure and efficient API design and external system connectivity.Advise on data security, encryption and compliance requirements.AI Architecture Provide blueprint designs and strategic guidance on embedding AI/ML capabilities directly into our product suites, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure and seamlessly integrated into the core application logic.Define the standards, rules and best practices for teams utilizing AI code generation tools (e.g., Cline, Open Router); mentor engineers on prompt engineering, code verification and maintaining high software quality in an AI-assisted development workflow.Architect and oversee the integration of AI evaluation, automated testing and model validation steps directly into our CI/CD pipelines, ensuring safe, continuous and compliant deployment of both software and AI artifacts.Act as the subject matter expert to upskill traditional software engineers in AI/ML concepts, bridging the gap between data science models and robust production-grade software engineering.Establish architectural guardrails for monitoring AI performance, data privacy, model drift and cost optimization, coaching engineering teams on how to build observability into every AI-powered feature.Collaboration & Cross-Functional AlignmentWork closely with Product, Engineering and Project Management to align architecture with delivery plans.Act as a technical escalation point for complex design challenges.Communicate architectural vision and decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.Support pre-sales or enterprise discussions where architectural input is required.Key Competencies and SkillsAbility to design long-term scalable solutions while enabling short-term delivery.Deep technical credibility with the ability to influence engineering teams.Strong understanding of distributed systems and platform design.Identifies and mitigates architectural and operational risks proactively.Works effectively across global, distributed teams.Balances ideal architecture with business realities and timelines.Experience and QualificationsEducation:Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, or a related field. A Master’s degree is advantageous.Experience:8–10 years in software engineering, with significant experience in architectural roles.Proven experience designing and evolving SaaS or cloud-native platformsExperience operating in high-availability, security-sensitive environments.Strong background in distributed systems and scalable infrastructure.Experience guiding engineering teams across multiple time zones or distributed structures.DesirableExperience in EdTech, secure testing platforms, or regulated SaaS environments.Experience supporting enterprise-scale integrations.Exposure to large-scale platform modernisation or transformation initiatives.Technical Skills:Deep knowledge of modern software architecture (microservices, event-driven systems, APIs).Strong cloud architecture experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP).Expertise in scalability, performance optimisation and resilience patterns.Experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code and DevOps practices.Strong understanding of data architecture (SQL/NoSQL, caching, data pipelines).Knowledge of security frameworks, encryption standards and compliance considerations.Familiarity with observability, monitoring and performance tooling.