Principal Architect

Snapmint is entering its next phase of growth from a fast-scaling startup to a robust, high-scale financial platform serving millions of users daily. You'll design systems built for 10x-100x growth, make the key technical trade-off calls, and stay deeply hands-on. Beyond building, you'll mentor engineers and work directly with founders and product teams to translate business goals into scalable, reliable systems. This role is an opportunity to shape the next-generation architecture for a high-throughput fintech system and build systems designed to scale 10x-100x from current volumes.

Responsibilities:

• Design and evolve the platform architecture to support 10x-100x growth.
• Own systems end-to-end from the first design decision to production impact.
• Lead system design discussions and set the long-term technical direction for the platform.
• Identify scale bottlenecks early and drive solutions.
• Mentor and elevate engineers through design reviews, code quality, and architectural thinking.
• Partner directly with founders and product teams to turn business priorities into scalable systems.
• Operate with high ownership in a fast-paced environment where priorities evolve quickly.
• Drive projects, independently own timelines, coordinate with teams, and see delivery.
• Conduct rigorous code reviews and champion engineering best practices across the team.
• Proactively identify gaps in the system and come up with concrete approaches to address them.
• Solve technical problems across the company, not just confined to a single pod.
• Challenge existing architecture with data and reasoning, push back when it's the right call, and drive adoption of better approaches.

Requirements:

• 10-14 years of experience in backend or platform engineering.
• Strong computer science fundamentals (preferably from IIT, BITS, NITs).
• Strong proficiency in backend development (Node.js, Java, Go, or equivalent).
• Proven experience scaling systems through high-growth startup phases.
• Track record of building and owning critical platforms or systems from scratch.
• Exposure to high-volume transactional systems; fintech or lending is a strong plus.
• Bias for action - moves fast, makes sound decisions, owns outcomes end-to-end.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and evolving priorities in a startup environment.
• Strong problem-solving skills; ability to break down complex technical challenges and arrive at pragmatic, well-reasoned solutions.
• Hands-on experience with platform engineering developer tooling, shared services, infrastructure abstractions, or internal platforms.
• Experience scaling infrastructure for high-growth fintech, consumer tech, or high-transaction platforms from 10x to 100x scale.