Principal Lead – Middleware Architecture

About the Opportunity

We are seeking an experienced Principal Lead - Middleware & Integration Architecture to provide technical leadership and shape the enterprise middleware and integration strategy for a large-scale, complex technology environment.

This is a senior technical leadership role responsible for driving API-first architecture, cloud adoption, integration modernisation and middleware platform engineering .

The successful candidate will combine deep architecture expertise with hands-on technical leadership, driving the modernisation of legacy platforms towards cloud-native, microservices and container-based architectures .

Key Responsibilities

Define and drive the enterprise middleware and integration strategy , aligned with business objectives, cloud adoption and API-first architecture.

Establish architecture standards, design patterns and engineering best practices across APIs, integration, messaging and event-driven platforms .

Lead the design, review and approval of middleware solutions, ensuring scalability, security, resilience and compliance with enterprise architecture standards.

Drive legacy-to-cloud, monolith-to-microservices and on-premise-to-Kubernetes modernisation initiatives.

Partner with delivery teams to plan and execute API, integration and messaging initiatives, providing technical guidance for complex or high-risk implementations.

Ensure middleware platforms meet requirements for high availability, observability, performance, disaster recovery and operational readiness .

Act as a senior technical escalation point for complex middleware platform incidents and production issues.

Evaluate middleware products, cloud services and open-source technologies, recommending solutions based on scalability, cost and risk.

Establish engineering best practices across DevSecOps, CI/CD, automation, documentation and knowledge sharing .

Provide technical leadership and coaching to middleware engineers, senior engineers and solution architects.

Work closely with Enterprise Architecture, Application Development, Cloud & Infrastructure, SRE, DevOps, Security and Network teams .

Manage technology vendors and partners to ensure successful delivery and platform performance.

Requirements

8-12+ years of experience in enterprise middleware, integration or platform engineering.

At least 5 years in a senior technical leadership, architecture or Principal-level role .

Proven experience designing and operating large-scale enterprise middleware platforms .

Strong architecture expertise across API Management, ESB/integration, messaging and event-driven architectures .

Demonstrated experience leading cloud migration and middleware modernisation programmes.

Strong understanding of microservices, Kubernetes/container platforms and cloud-native architecture .

Good knowledge of production resilience, high availability, observability, capacity planning and disaster recovery.

Experience with DevSecOps, CI/CD and engineering automation practices .

Strong architecture governance and ability to establish technical standards and design principles.

Able to provide hands-on technical guidance while influencing senior stakeholders and cross-functional engineering teams.

Excellent communication, stakeholder and vendor-management skills.

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