Everfi is a leading provider of digital education content, empowering organizations to drive direct impact in communities on important social issues from financial wellness and mental health to workplace culture. Since 2008, we’ve reached over 41 million learners worldwide and earned recognition from Fast Company, Fortune, and GSV for our innovation and impact.

The Lead Architect for Back End Infrastructure is responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining the enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) that underpins Everfi's business applications. This role ensures high availability, scalability, and security of mission-critical systems leveraging modern technologies such as Kafka for event streaming and Ruby on Rails for application frameworks. This role requires the ability to write code, investigate issues, and proof of concept features.

Key Responsibilities

• Architecture Leadership: Define and maintain the overall architecture for back end SOA systems, ensuring alignment with business goals and technical standards.

• Infrastructure Design: Oversee the design and implementation of distributed systems leveraging Apache Kafka for event-driven messaging and integration.

• Application Framework Oversight: Provide technical leadership for applications built on Ruby on Rails, ensuring best practices in performance, security, and maintainability.

• Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle and CI/CD pipeline design.

• Integration Strategy: Develop and manage strategies for integrating internal and external systems within the SOA framework.

• Governance & Standards: Establish architectural standards, patterns, and guidelines for service development and deployment.

• Performance Optimization: Monitor and optimize system performance, scalability, and reliability across all BA SOA components.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with engineering, product, and operations teams to deliver robust solutions and support agile development cycles.

• Incident & Risk Management: Lead efforts to ensure operational readiness, including disaster recovery planning and compliance with security policies.

• Mentorship: Guide and mentor engineering teams on architectural principles and emerging technologies.

• Other job duties as assigned.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field (or equivalent experience).

• 8+ years of experience in software architecture and engineering, with a focus on SOA and distributed systems.

• Experience with Apache Kafka and event-driven architecture.

• Strong proficiency in Ruby on Rails and related frameworks.

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).

• Deep understanding of microservices, API design, and integration patterns.

• Experience with Redis, Memcached, Sidekiq, PostgresSQL.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in educational technology or SaaS environments.

• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.

• Knowledge of data privacy, security, and compliance standards.