Application Architect

This is a hybrid role in our Newton, MA office and requires onsite work 3 days a week.

We’re looking for a Back-end Architect to lead the design and evolution of our cloud-native systems, with a strong focus on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AI integration (Gemini/Vertex AI), and modern back-end technologies like Python (FastAPI) and MongoDB. Responsible for the creation, maintenance and management of technology solutions that are aligned with business needs, reflects best practices and increase option value for the organization. Makes high-level design choices focused on manageability, scalability, usability, resiliency, availability, security, and/or safety for the software structure, protocols, and algorithms. Determines coding, development tools, validation, and standards compliance requirements. Collaborates with management, product owners, and project managers to evaluate the feasibility of requirements and determine priorities for development. Performs pathfinding, surveys technologies, participates in standards committees and presents at external and internal events. Interacts with multiple technologists in the company to influence architectures and optimize/customize software offerings. This is a hybrid role based in our Newton, MA office, offering the opportunity to shape the future of our digital platforms and mentor a global team across the U.S. and India.

Bright Horizons is trusted by families and employers around the world for high-quality child care and early education, back-up care, and workplace education. We partner with some of the world’s best companies to provide services that help employees perform their best and support families to thrive both personally and professionally.

What you will be doing:

• Architect and modernize scalable, secure, and AI-ready back-end systems.

• Provide technical leadership on design, development, and execution of AI-ready back-end systems.

• Lead the design of cloud-native applications using GCP services (Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, etc.).

• Integrate AI/ML capabilities using Vertex AI and Gemini models into back-end workflows.

• Develop and use relevant industry standards and domain information models to satisfy functional and non-functional requirements and achieve compliance with mandated standards/guidelines.

• Participate in proposing new technical architectures and solutions to improve and enhance existing architectures.

• Determine scope and provide level of effort estimates for project tasks and related activities, and match required skill sets to task requirements and allocate team resources appropriately.

• Provide technical architecture subject matter expertise and services for new and existing projects.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to distributed development teams.

• Define and enforce coding standards, architectural patterns, and best practices.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align technology with business goals.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and propose innovative solutions.

• Ensure systems meet high standards of resiliency, scalability, observability, and security.

• Drive DevOps practices and CI/CD automation for efficient delivery pipelines.

• Conduct or facilitate collaborative data modeling activities among multiple stakeholders.

• Support the business development efforts where data architecture and analysis requirements are defined.

• Communication

  • Facilitate team and client meetings effectively.

  • Hold regular status meetings with project team.

  • Keep project team well informed of changes within the organization and general corporate news.

  • Effectively communicate relevant project information to superiors.

  • Deliver engaging, informative, well-organized presentations.

  • Resolve and/or escalate issues in a timely fashion.

  • Understand how to communicate difficult/sensitive information tactfully.

• Teamwork

  • Consistently acknowledge and appreciate each team member's contributions.

  • Effectively utilize each team member to his/her fullest potential.

  • Motivate team to work together in the most efficient manner.

  • Keep track of lessons learned and share those lessons with team members.

  • Mitigate team conflict and communication problems.

• In conjunction with the CIO and IT leadership team, enhance IT best-practices, policies and methodologies as part of the Bright Horizons IT Transformation to a world-class IT orga