Senior Integration Architect

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY Join a dynamic technology company undergoing significant digital transformation in their integration architecture landscape as a Senior Integration Architect working fully remote from Portugal.  You'll be working at the intersection of strategic architectural design and hands-on technical leadership, shaping the integration landscape using cutting-edge technologies including Apache Kafka for event streaming and Java Spring Boot for microservices architecture.  Critical Requirements: This is a senior-level position requiring proven experience as an Integration Architect with hands-on expertise in integration microservices, Java Spring Boot, Apache Kafka within integration landscapes, and a demonstrated track record of successfully redesigning and replacing legacy integrations with modern event-driven or API-based solutions. Strong technical leadership, analytical problem-solving abilities, and stakeholder engagement experience are essential. PROJECT & CONTEXT The company is transitioning their entire integration landscape from monolithic legacy systems to modern, distributed architectures that support scalability, security, and high performance across their technology ecosystem. As the Senior Integration Architect, you'll be the technical leader and strategic driver of this transformation, responsible for architecting complex integration solutions that ensure seamless connectivity between systems, applications, and services while meeting complex business needs and adhering to enterprise standards. Your core architectural responsibilities center on designing and documenting complex integration architectures that are scalable, secure, and aligned with both business goals and enterprise architectural standards. You'll lead the design and development of integration microservices, defining the architectural patterns, best practices, and governance frameworks for their creation and management across the organization. A significant focus will be architecting and overseeing projects to redesign and replace legacy integrations, transitioning them from monolithic or outdated approaches to modern event-driven or API-based solutions that support the company's digital transformation objectives. Technical leadership is a fundamental aspect of this role - you'll act as the subject matter expert for integration technologies, providing hands-on guidance to development teams and helping resolve complex technical challenges that arise during implementation. You'll work directly with or support teams building Java Spring Boot microservices, ensuring architectural consistency, code quality, and adherence to best practices. Your expertise with Apache Kafka will be critical as you design event-driven architectures and implement streaming integration patterns that enable real-time data flow and system decoupling. Stakeholder engagement and collaboration are essential elements of your day-to-day work. You'll engage with business stakeholders to understand requirements and translate complex business objectives into technical architectures and integration solutions. This requires working closely with development teams to ensure they understand the architectural vision and implementation patterns, collaborating with enterprise architects to ensure alignment with broader technology strategies, and communicating technical decisions and trade-offs to cross-functional teams including product managers, business analysts, and executive leadership. Innovation and continuous improvement are expected - you'll stay up-to-date with industry trends and emerging technologies in the integration space, evaluate new tools and approaches for potential adoption, and propose innovative solutions and architectural improvements that enhance the company's integration capabilities. You'll establish patterns for API-first design, microservices communication, event-driven architectures, and integration governance that can be reused across multiple projects and teams. Your work will involve debugging and troubleshooting complex distributed systems, requiring excellent analytical and problem-solving skills to identify root causes of integration failures, performance bottlenecks, or architectural issues. You'll ensure that integration solutions are designed for observability, monitoring, and operational excellence, implementing patterns that support system reliability, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation. Documentation and knowledge sharing are key responsibilities - you'll create comprehensive architectural documentation including integration patterns, design decisions, data flows, and system dependencies. You'll mentor development teams on integration best practices, establish standards and guidelines for integration development, and contribute to the broader architectural community within the organization. Core Tech Stack: Apache Kafka (event streaming), Java Spring Boot (microservices framework), RESTful APIs, event-driven architecture patterns, integration middleware Integration Focus: Microservices architecture, event-driven systems, legacy modernization, API design, distributed systems Leadership: Technical SME, architectural governance, team guidance, stakeholder management Scale: Enterprise-grade integration solutions supporting critical business operations and digital transformation initiatives WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR (Required) Integration Architecture Experience: Proven track record as an Integration Architect with demonstrated success designing and implementing complex integration solutions across enterprise environments - this is the core requirement Integration Microservices Expertise: Deep hands-on experience working on integration microservices architectures including design patterns, architectural governance, best practices for service composition, and management frameworks for distributed integration services Java Spring Boot Microservices: Hands-on experience working with or directly supporting development teams building Java Spring Boot microservices, understanding Spring ecosystem, RESTful API development, and microservices design patterns Apache Kafka Experience: Production-level experience using Apache Kafka within integration landscapes for event-driven architectures, event streaming, real-time data pipelines, and system decoupling - understanding of Kafka architecture, topics, partitions, consumer groups, and integration patterns Legacy Integration Redesign: Demonstrated experience in redesigning and replacing legacy integrations, successfully transitioning monolithic or outdated systems to modern API-based or event-driven solutions with proven ability to manage technical debt and incremental migration strategies Scalable Architecture Design: Proven ability to design scalable and secure architectures that meet complex business requirements while maintaining high performance, reliability, and alignment with enterprise standards Technical Leadership: Strong technical leadership skills with ability to guide and mentor development teams, act as subject matter expert for integration technologies, and provide architectural direction across multiple projects Problem-Solving & Debugging: Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities specifically in debugging complex distributed systems, identifying integration issues, troubleshooting performance problems, and resolving architectural challenges Stakeholder Engagement: Experience engaging with business and technical stakeholders, translating business requirements into technical architectures, communicating architectural decisions, and ensuring alignment across cross-functional teams Architectural Documentation: Ability to create comprehensive architectural documentation including integration patterns, design decisions, system diagrams, data flows, and technical specifications Distributed Systems Understanding: Deep understanding of distributed systems principles including fault tolerance, eventual consistency, service mesh concepts, and resilience patterns API Design: Knowledge of API design principles, RESTful architecture, API versioning strategies, and API management best practices English Proficiency: B2 level (Upper Intermediate) or higher in English for technical documentation, stakeholder communication, and collaboration with distributed teams Work Authorization: Eligible to work from Portugal with full remote work capability NICE TO HAVE (Preferred) Cloud-Native Integration: Experience with cloud-native integration patterns on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform including managed messaging services, serverless integration, and cloud-specific architectural patterns API-First Design: Deep expertise in API-first design principles, OpenAPI/Swagger specifications, API gateway technologies, and API lifecycle management Containerization & Orchestration: Hands-on experience with Docker containerization and Kubernetes orchestration for deploying and managing integration services at scale DevOps & CI/CD: Understanding of DevOps practices and CI/CD pipeline implementation for integration components including automated testing, deployment automation, and infrastructure as code Additional Event Streaming Platforms: Experience with alternative event streaming platforms beyond Kafka such as AWS Kinesis, Azure Event Hubs, Apache Pulsar, or RabbitMQ Message Queue Systems: Familiarity with traditional message queue systems including RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, AWS SQS, or Azure Service Bus API Management Platforms: Experience with API management platforms such as Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management, or MuleSoft Service Mesh Technologies: Knowledge of service mesh technologies like Istio, Linkerd, or Consul for microservices communication management Monitoring & Observability: Experience implementing monitoring and observability solutions for integration systems using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk, or distributed tracing platforms Enterprise Integration Patterns: Deep knowledge of enterprise integration patterns (EIP) and their practical application in modern architectures Security & Compliance: Understanding of security patterns for integration including OAuth2, JWT, API security, encryption in transit and at rest, and compliance requirements GraphQL: Experience with GraphQL as an alternative to REST for API design and implementation gRPC & Protocol Buffers: Knowledge of gRPC for high-performance microservices communication and Protocol Buffers for efficient serialization Multiple Programming Languages: Proficiency in additional programming languages beyond Java such as Python, Go, , or Scala Database Technologies: Experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases relevant to integration scenarios including PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, or Redis Agile Methodologies: Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments with understanding of how architecture fits within iterative development Enterprise Architecture Frameworks: Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks like TOGAF, Zachman, or similar methodologies Performance Optimization: Deep skills in optimizing integration performance including caching strategies, connection pooling, batch processing, and throughput optimization Disaster Recovery: Experience designing integration solutions with disaster recovery and business continuity considerations Multi-Region Architectures: Knowledge of designing integration architectures that span multiple geographic regions or data centers Location: Remote from Portugal (Full-Remote)