Technical Architect or Tech Lead

Our client develops an industry-leading digital plant management and operational software platform used by major global manufacturers-specifically within the Food & Beverage sector-to unify production, quality control, and compliance.

We are seeking an urgent, long-term Technical Architect or Tech Lead to join the core team in Grapevine, Texas. This is a highly collaborative, hands-on engineering leadership role. Because you will be interacting directly with localized manufacturing platform frameworks and core engineering teams, this position requires working onsite in Grapevine, TX 4 days a week (with 1 day work-from-home).

Note: Previous title is secondary. We are looking for an engineering leader who balances strong technical fundamentals with practical problem-solving, solution design, hands-on coding, and true end-to-end ownership. We are open to strong Lead candidates who demonstrate Architect-level thinking.

Core Responsibilities & Deliverables

• Solution Architecture: Design scalable, maintainable, and practical software solutions for a high-throughput plant management platform.
• Hands-on Coding & Execution: Actively participate in coding, white-boarding, and architectural prototyping; this is not a purely conceptual or managerial role.
• System Ownership: Take complete accountability for technical outcomes across multiple layers of the stack, avoiding siloes or component-only boundaries.
• Technical Leadership: Guide the engineering team, lead system design discussions, and evaluate trade-offs confidently before proposing final directions.
• Stakeholder Presentation: Articulate complex technical alternatives and defend architectural decisions clearly to both technical and business executives., Candidates must be prepared for a rigorous evaluation focused on execution, architecture trade-offs, and communication: 1. Internal Rounds: 1^st Technical Interview + 2^nd Technical Interview & Prep Call. 2. Client Rounds: 1^st Virtual Technical Interview + 2^nd Technical In-Person Interview (Mandatory at the Grapevine, TX office).

Compliance & Workforce Policies

• Work Authorization:Engagement Model: Open to established independent 1099 contractors holding a valid Certificate of Insurance (COI) and active business registration.

Recruitment Policy: We are executing this hiring need internally. Submissions from third-party staffing agencies, C2C brokers, or offshore placement firms will be automatically disqualified.

• Experience: 10 to 15 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Background Preference: Highly value candidates from product-focused environments, start-ups, or small organizations where you owned complete solutions end-to-end. (Candidates whose experience is primarily limited to large-enterprise environments with narrowly defined responsibilities may not be the best fit).
• Engineering Fundamentals: Mastery of object-oriented design, SOLID principles, design patterns, clean code practices, API/service design, fault tolerance, and security.
• Data Structures & Algorithms: Strong capability to reason through complex algos and solve real-world problems via active whiteboard coding.
• Database Expertise: Exceptional understanding of data modeling, relational databases, query optimization, indexing, transactions, concurrency, and data integrity.
• System Design: Deep experience designing for massive scalability, high availability, performance optimization, and cross-system integration.