Software Architect

Our client, is seeking an experienced, hands-on Software Architect to join their high-growth Catalog & Search Platform Engineering organization.

In this strategic and hands-on technical role, you will shape the architecture and delivery of cloud-native search and browse capabilities powering critical digital discovery touchpoints (Search, Category, and Product Detail Pages) across high-traffic digital retail channels. Operating in an approximately 50/50 balance between systems design/architecture governance and hands-on engineering, you will lead the evolution of enterprise search engines, distributed backend APIs, and scalable data models. Working with a distributed engineering pod across North America and offshore teams, you will partner closely with engineering squads and product management to design high-availability systems, establish CI/CD best practices, and direct technical solutions to complex platform challenges.

Duration: 6-Month Contract (Full-time engagement; highly extendable)

Work Arrangement: Remote (Strong preference for Vancouver, BC area; open to remote across North America with requirement to operate on Pacific Time with an 8:30 AM PST daily stand-up)

Advantages
High-Traffic Digital Commerce Impact: Architect backend search, browse, and catalog discovery platforms that power upper-funnel experiences for millions of global digital consumers.

Balanced Architecture & Engineering Scope: Enjoy a balanced role combining high-level systems design and architectural governance with hands-on coding and technical problem solving.

Long-Term Extension Potential: Secure a strategic initial 6-month consulting assignment with strong multi-term extension potential.

Modern Cloud-Native Tech Stack: Design natively on AWS utilizing OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, microservices, containerization, and modern observability tools.

Responsibilities
Search Engine & Platform Architecture: Architect, design, and manage large-scale search and catalog engines (OpenSearch, Elasticsearch, Lucene) supporting critical upper-funnel digital commerce discovery flows.

Hands-on Design & Delivery (50/50): Balance architectural leadership and roadmapping with hands-on development, code reviews, and direct implementation alongside cross-functional engineering pods.

System Design Artifacts: Create detailed architectural blueprints, including logical, conceptual, and data integration diagrams adhering to enterprise architecture standards.

Cross-Functional Sprint Planning: Partner with product management and engineering leads to define technical roadmaps, sprint scope, QA strategies, and production reliability metrics.

DevOps & Platform Automation: Leverage Terraform, Jenkins, Git, and automated CI/CD pipelines to streamline deployment velocity, code quality gates, and cloud provisioning.

Reliability & Production Escalation: Serve as the senior technical escalation point for critical production incidents, ensuring rapid recovery, conducting root-cause analysis, and implementing resilient preventative controls.

Global Team Alignment: Collaborate daily with distributed engineering teams across North America and offshore development centers, maintaining smooth operational cadence during core Pacific Time business hours.

Qualifications
Professional IT Depth: 8+ years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience in software engineering, technical systems design, and application architecture.

Enterprise Search Engine Mastery: Hands-on experience building, scaling, and managing enterprise search engines using OpenSearch, Elasticsearch, or Lucene implementations.

Cloud Platform Proficiency: Strong background in cloud-native application architectures, natively deployed on AWS (or comparable enterprise cloud platforms such as Azure or GCP).

Backend Development Skills: Hands-on coding and systems design proficiency in backend languages such as Java, Go, or Python.

Database & High Availability: Demonstrated experience designing for 24/7 high availability using relational databases and NoSQL solutions (e.g., DynamoDB, Elasticsearch).

DevOps & Infrastructure as Code: Working familiarity with CI/CD automation and tooling, including Terraform, Jenkins, Git, Splunk, and APM monitoring suites.

Communication & Technical Leadership: Proven ability to lead architectural design reviews, present tradeoffs to leadership, and mentor engineering teams across complex technical domains.

Schedule Alignment: Ability to align with Pacific Standard Time (PST) working hours, including daily 8:30 AM PST stand-ups.

Summary
If you are a tech-savvy Software Architect or Staff/Principal Engineer who pairs 8+ years of software engineering depth with hands-on OpenSearch/Elasticsearch engine mastery, modern AWS architecture expertise, and a balanced passion for systems design and code delivery, this 6-month contract opportunity is an ideal next step. Bring your platform engineering precision, search architecture vision, and collaborative technical leadership to our client's team today!

Randstad Canada is committed to fostering a workforce reflective of all peoples of Canada. As a result, we are committed to developing and implementing strategies to increase the equity, diversity and inclusion within the workplace by examining our internal policies, practices, and systems throughout the entire lifecycle of our workforce, including its recruitment, retention and advancement for all employees. In addition to our deep commitment to respecting human rights, we are dedicated to positive actions to affect change to ensure everyone has full participation in the workforce free from any barriers, systemic or otherwise, especially equity-seeking groups who are usually underrepresented in Canada's workforce, including those who identify as women or non-binary/gender non-conforming; Indigenous or Aboriginal Peoples; persons with disabilities (visible or invisible) and; members of visible minorities, racialized groups and the LGBTQ2+ community.

Randstad Canada is committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible workplace for all its candidates and employees by supporting their accessibility and accommodation needs throughout the employment lifecycle. We ask that all job applications please identify any accommodation requirements by sending an email to [email protected] to ensure their ability to fully participate in the interview process.