Software Architect
A hands-on Software Architect joins Papaya Global's central Architects Team in Kraków, shaping scalable, secure architecture across payroll, payments, workforce and platform domains — building POCs, leading vendor due diligence, mentoring teams, and championing AI-assisted engineering. Core stack: Java, AWS, microservices, Kafka, Docker/Kubernetes.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Kraków, Małopolskie
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Category
- Architecture
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 8+ years of proven experience as a System/Software Architect designing robust, scalable systems
- 12+ years of hands-on software development experience with strong proficiency in Java (preferred) or an equivalent backend language
- Proven experience building enterprise SaaS platforms, self-service products, and highly scaled production systems
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field
- Deep expertise in cloud-native architecture
- Hands-on experience with microservices, event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS), and containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes)
- Strong command of software design patterns, SDLC, and system integration strategies
- Expertise in design paradigms such as DDD, TDD, EDD and principles like SOLID, KISS, DRY, SSOT, CQS
- Solid grasp of security fundamentals: encryption, authentication, authorization, data privacy, secure coding
- Proficiency with SQL and NoSQL databases, and API design using REST and GraphQL
- Practical experience with Git branching strategies, CI/CD pipelines, and Agile development practices
- Deep, hands-on experience with at least one agentic AI coding tool (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot Agent Mode, Codex CLI) used regularly on real, non-trivial work
- Practical fluency with AI productivity tools across the workflow (LLM assistants, AI-assisted code review, documentation generation, research)
- Ability to design effective context for AI agents (prompts, repo/doc structuring, delegation vs. manual drive)
Nice to have
- Experience in FinTech or other regulated industries
- Strong advantage: AWS experience (Lambda, ECS, S3, RDS, IAM)
- Experience integrating AI/LLM capabilities and agent-based components into backend products and workflows
Full description
Papaya Global is a rapidly growing, award-winning B2B tech unicorn with an ambitious mission to revolutionize the payroll & payments industry. With over $400M raised from multiple tier-one investors, our innovative technology provides a comprehensive solution for managing global workforces, encompassing everything from hiring and onboarding to managing and paying employees in over 160 countries.
About the Role
We're looking for a Software Architect to join Papaya's central Architects Team — a small group of senior architects that partners with every R&D department in the company. In this role you won't own a single product silo; instead, you'll move across domains (payments, payroll, workforce management, platform, data, security) to help teams shape sound, scalable, secure systems and to keep Papaya's overall technical direction coherent.
This is a hands-on architecture role at the intersection of engineering, product, security, and DevOps. You'll be expected to dive deep into unfamiliar domains quickly, influence without direct authority, and bring the highest bar of technical thinking — including modern AI-assisted engineering practices — to everything you touch.
If you're energized by hard problems at global scale, by working across many teams rather than one, and by shaping how a modern engineering organization actually builds software in the age of AI, this role is for you.
What You'll Do
- Lead architectural design across multiple Papaya domains and infrastructure systems, ensuring solutions meet business, scalability, performance, and compliance needs.
- Act as a trusted architectural partner to R&D, Product, Security, and DevOps teams — translating business and product requirements into clear technical direction.
- Define and maintain high-level architecture across domains, with a focus on seamless integration, maintainability, and long-term evolvability.
- Build hands-on Proofs of Concept (POCs) to de-risk architectural decisions, validate new technologies, and demonstrate viable paths forward before broad investment.
- Lead technical Due Diligence on third-party vendors, platforms, and integrations — evaluating architecture fit, scalability, security posture, compliance, operational maturity, and long-term cost.
- Drive secure-by-design practices, embedding security, privacy, and regulatory considerations into every stage of system design.
- Evaluate and introduce emerging technologies, frameworks, and patterns — including AI/LLM-based capabilities — where they create real leverage for the business.
- Champion the adoption of AI-powered engineering tools and agentic workflows across R&D, helping teams use them effectively, safely, and consistently.
- Define and steward Papaya's architectural guidelines, standards, and best practices, and help ensure they are actually applied in day-to-day delivery.