Software Architect Sr Lead

You will join FIS’ Non-Functional Engineering (NFE) team, the group accountable for the performance, scalability and resilience of the OPF payments product line. Operating globally across EMEA, the US, APAC and India, the team defines and validates the non-functional requirements behind mission-critical payment platforms, engineers the load, stress and endurance testing that proves them, and translates measured evidence into tuning, sizing and architecture decisions. Our purpose is straightforward: ensure FIS products are fast, predictable and resilient at real production scale, long before a customer ever feels a bottleneck., As a Software Architect Lead, you will own deep technical analysis that explains how our payment platforms behave under load and how to make them significantly faster. You will profile running systems, dissect runtime behavior, challenge design decisions and work shoulder to shoulder with the engineers who build the product. You will not simply report findings. You will prototype, measure and prove optimizations that turn analysis into quantifiable gains in throughput, latency and cost.

• Profile Java applications end to end across CPU, memory, threads and I/O, using tools such as Java Flight Recorder, async-profiler and JProfiler to isolate hot paths that constrain throughput.
• Analyze thread dumps to diagnose lock contention, deadlocks, thread-pool exhaustion and blocking I/O, then reshape the concurrency model to remove the constraint.
• Use performance test evidence, logs, telemetry and code-level analysis to identify bottlenecks across application, database, messaging, network and platform layers.
• Prototype and validate technical improvements, including code, configuration, JVM, database, caching, messaging and deployment-level optimizations.
• Translate measured performance results into practical architecture recommendations, sizing guidance and engineering actions for product and delivery teams.
• Act as a technical reference point for non-functional architecture, coaching engineers on performance-aware design, scalability patterns and resilient implementation choices.

• Strong hands-on software engineering background with deep Java/JVM expertise and a genuine interest in reading, understanding and improving code.
• Proven experience in performance engineering, performance tuning or software architecture for complex enterprise systems.
• Strong understanding of concurrency, garbage collection, memory management, I/O, thread pools, locking, asynchronous processing and distributed system behavior.
• Experience using Java profiling and diagnostic tools such as Java Flight Recorder, async-profiler, JProfiler or equivalent tooling.
• Ability to connect metrics with code behavior and convert evidence into clear, actionable technical recommendations.
• Strong communication skills and the confidence to challenge design choices constructively with engineering, architecture and product stakeholders.

Bonus if you have

• Experience with payment platforms, banking systems, high-volume transaction processing or other mission-critical financial technology environments.
• Knowledge of OPF, payment hubs, SEPA, SWIFT, instant payments, clearing, settlement or related payment processing concepts.
• Experience with Oracle, PostgreSQL, MQ, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Azure, AWS, Linux/AIX, WebSphere or Open Liberty.
• Experience leading technical investigations, mentoring senior engineers or driving architecture-level performance improvements across distributed teams.
• Exposure to load, stress, endurance and resilience testing practices for large-scale enterprise platforms

• Opportunities to make an impact in fintech.
• Personal and professional learning.
• Inclusive, diverse work environment.
• Resources to give back to your community.
• Competitive salary and benefits.