Staff Software Architect - Advanced

Independence Pet Group

1d•Remote

About The Position

Established in 2021, Independence Pet Holdings is a corporate holding company that manages a diverse and broad portfolio of modern pet health brands and services, including insurance, pet education, lost recovery services, and more throughout North America. We believe pet insurance is more than a financial product and build solutions to simplify the pet parenting journey and help improve the well-being of pets. As a leading authority in the pet category, we operate with a full stack of resources, capital, and services to support pet parents. Our multi-brand and omni-channel approach include our own insurance carrier, insurance brands and partner brands. About Clarus Clarus is a pet health data technology company modernizing how information flows between insurers, veterinarians, and pet owners. We build cloud-native platforms that power automation, real-time decisioning, and trusted data exchange across the pet healthcare ecosystem. Our engineering culture emphasizes strong domain ownership, modern architecture, and tight alignment between Product, Architecture, and Engineering. The Role We are hiring Staff Software Architects to translate product vision into scalable technical reality. Architecture at Clarus sits at the critical intersection of Product strategy, domain modeling, and engineering execution. You will work upstream with Product to shape solutions and downstream with engineering teams to ensure designs are implementable, maintainable, and aligned with our long-term platform strategy. You are not a slideware architect — you define domain boundaries, integration patterns, and technical design standards that directly drive how teams build software. This role is ideal for someone who excels at: Turning ambiguous product ideas into structured domain designs Deciding when to extend existing systems vs introduce new domains Designing distributed, event-driven systems in a modern Azure ecosystem Where You Fit in Our Delivery Process Clarus follows a structured Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC) from discovery through execution. Architecture plays a pivotal role in the early and middle phases: Partner with Product during Discovery & Solutioning to assess feasibility and shape solution direction Lead Architecture and Technical Design stages by decomposing features into domains, services, and integration patterns Enable Engineering during Sprint Planning & Execution by providing clear, implementable technical designs Your job is to ensure that what enters engineering is: Technically viable Architecturally consistent Aligned with platform standards What You Will Own 1. Domain Architecture & System Decomposition Translate product initiatives into domain-level architecture Define when to enhance existing bounded contexts versus introduce new domains Apply Domain-Driven Design (DDD) to establish clear service boundaries Prevent tight coupling by enforcing proper integration patterns You are the steward of domain clarity and long-term system shape. 2. Event-Driven & Distributed Systems Design Define asynchronous communication patterns using Azure Service Bus and Event Grid Design resilient, decoupled services that maintain data integrity in distributed systems Establish patterns for state management and eventual consistency Guide teams on trade-offs between synchronous APIs and event-based flows 3. Azure Application Architecture Design the application layer using our core Azure stack: Azure Functions for event-driven/serverless workloads Azure App Service for web and API workloads Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) where container orchestration is required Azure API Management (APIM) for API governance, security, and throttling Azure Front Door for global traffic routing and resilience Azure Key Vault and App Configuration for secure, consistent configuration You define when each compute model is appropriate and document standards for their use. 4. Data Integration & Platform Connectivity Architect how operational systems integrate with the broader data ecosystem Define data ownership boundaries between applications and the data platform Design integration patterns with Azure Data Factory and Databricks pipelines Establish patterns for relational (Azure SQL) vs document (Cosmos DB) storage You ensure that applications are data-aware without becoming data-platform heavy. 5. API Strategy & External Integrations Define API security, versioning, and traffic management standards via APIM Architect reliable partner integrations and external system connectivity Ensure services are built for extensibility as new partners are onboarded 6. Technical Leadership & Governance Produce Domain Design Documents (DDD) and work with Engineering to produce Technical Design Documents (TDD) Mentor senior engineers and tech leads on architecture and design patterns Review designs for alignment with platform standards Collaborate with DevOps to ensure designs are deployable and observable Promote security, resilience, and cost-aware design principles

Requirements

10+ years in software engineering, with 3–5+ years in Architecture roles
Deep experience with Domain-Driven Design (DDD) and system decomposition
Strong expertise in event-driven and distributed system design
Hands-on experience with the Azure application stack (Functions, App Service, Service Bus, APIM)
Experience designing systems in .NET-centric environments
Ability to manage data consistency and state across services
Excellent communication skills across Product, Engineering, and leadership

Nice To Haves

Experience with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Experience integrating with Databricks or data lakehouse architectures
Experience in regulated or integration-heavy ecosystems
Experience designing AI/ML integration into operational systems

Responsibilities

Translate product initiatives into domain-level architecture
Define when to enhance existing bounded contexts versus introduce new domains
Apply Domain-Driven Design (DDD) to establish clear service boundaries
Prevent tight coupling by enforcing proper integration patterns
Define asynchronous communication patterns using Azure Service Bus and Event Grid
Design resilient, decoupled services that maintain data integrity in distributed systems
Establish patterns for state management and eventual consistency
Guide teams on trade-offs between synchronous APIs and event-based flows
Design the application layer using our core Azure stack: Azure Functions for event-driven/serverless workloads Azure App Service for web and API workloads Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) where container orchestration is required Azure API Management (APIM) for API governance, security, and throttling Azure Front Door for global traffic routing and resilience Azure Key Vault and App Configuration for secure, consistent configuration
Architect how operational systems integrate with the broader data ecosystem
Define data ownership boundaries between applications and the data platform
Design integration patterns with Azure Data Factory and Databricks pipelines
Establish patterns for relational (Azure SQL) vs document (Cosmos DB) storage
Define API security, versioning, and traffic management standards via APIM
Architect reliable partner integrations and external system connectivity
Ensure services are built for extensibility as new partners are onboarded
Produce Domain Design Documents (DDD) and work with Engineering to produce Technical Design Documents (TDD)
Mentor senior engineers and tech leads on architecture and design patterns
Review designs for alignment with platform standards
Collaborate with DevOps to ensure designs are deployable and observable
Promote security, resilience, and cost-aware design principles