Principle Software Architect

About the role

As a Principal Architect, you'll shape the technical direction of Keyloop's automotive SaaS platform. You'll define cross-cutting architectural standards, influence product and engineering strategy, and lead the most complex design challenges across the organisation. This is a senior individual-contributor role operating at the intersection of technology leadership and business outcomes, reporting to the Engineering Director.

What you'll do:

• Define cross-cutting architectural patterns and standards across Keyloop's platform
• Lead multidisciplinary architecture initiatives spanning product, infrastructure, and data
• Research and evaluate emerging technologies, and make strategic build / buy / adopt recommendations
• Own architectural standards for multi-tenancy, data sovereignty, and regulatory compliance
• Champion developer experience and engineering productivity as a platform-level outcome
• Influence product and engineering strategy at senior leadership level
• Coach and develop Architects and Senior Architects, and contribute to ROI analysis for major technical investments

What we're looking for:

• 15+ years in software development, including 5+ years in a senior architecture role
• Demonstrated track record of leading enterprise-scale architecture transformation
• Experience with large-scale SaaS or multi-tenant platform architecture
• Mastery across cloud platforms, distributed systems, and platform engineering
• Deep understanding of observability, reliability engineering (SRE), and cost optimization
• Strong data architecture - scalable, reliable, and analytically capable systems
• Executive-level communication; able to influence without authority and balance long-term vision with near-term delivery

How we work with AI:

Keyloop is building an AI-driven engineering model, and this role is expected to operate in an AI-native way from day one. You'll define platform strategy for agent orchestration and reusable AI infrastructure, set AI safety, ethics, and compliance standards that enable (rather than block) delivery, and translate the competitive AI landscape into concrete architectural bets. You'll be the person the organisation turns to when our use of AI needs to evolve.

Nice to have:

• Production experience with microservices, event-driven, or SOA architectures
• Exposure to automotive retail, DMS, or enterprise SaaS domains
• Relevant cloud certifications (e.g. AWS Solutions Architect, GCP Professional Architect)