Software Architect

About Company:

Our client is a Delhi NCR, India headquartered 7+-year-old social/development sector-focused advisory and consulting firm. With a robust team of 100+ ICT4D professionals,they develop IT applications for NGOs, Government functionaries, CSRs, International Funding Organizations, etc. to manage theirprojects and programs in India and abroad. We are a team of young dynamic, development-conscious tech -enablers and problem solvers consisting of a diverse mix of development professionals, technology enthusiasts, software

engineers, and analysts. Our solutions enable organizations to monitor and evaluate their programs for maximum impact and operate seamlessly across everyday operations.

Job Overview:

Dhwani Rural information systems Pvt. Ltd. is looking to hire a Chief Technical Officer, to provide sound technical leadership in all aspects of the business. The CTO would be responsible for all technology systems, processes, software design and development within the company. Our ideal candidate needs to have more than 15 years of

experience building technology solutions to improve business process, increase productivity and efficiency and reduce cost for its customers, vendors, and internal employees. The candidate should have experience in social sector consulting/IT consulting/Government advisory and working with CSRs, Philanthropies or Large NGOs. The CTO must have in depth knowledge of and experience in driving technological innovation and leading product development

projects.

Responsibilities

The CTO will work with a team in the following activities -

• Lead the strategy for technology platforms, partnerships and external relationships

• Formulate a vision for how technology will be utilized within the company

• Streamline the IT Project requirements through a technological approach

• Outline company goals and timelines for research and development

• Develop technical aspects of the company’s strategy for alignment with its business goals

• Help departments use technology profitably and act as a mentor to middle management of the company

• Make executive decisions on behalf of the company’s technological requirements.

• Keep abreast of new trends and best practices in the technology landscape

• Work closely with Dhwani’s senior leadership to define and deliver new products and enhancements

Essential Tech Requirements:

• Broad knowledge of software engineering: languages, frameworks, techniques, and industry trends.

• Experience in designing and managing an effective IT governance framework across the spectrum of IT

service delivery.

• Good understanding of agile methodologies

• In-depth knowledge of web systems architecture, design and development

• Knowledge of software development life cycle. Preferable from CS/IT

• Basic understanding of how a software works (Frontend, Backend, API, Database Schema etc)

• Exposure to different off the shelf solutions (ZOHO, QuickBooks, Greythr, Google Suite, Microsoft Suite,

Zapier, Survey Monkey, IVR, SMS)

• Requirement gathering for software

• Get involved in the entire SDLC (Design, Develop, UAT, Rollout)

Essential Non-Tech Requirements:

• Accountable and ownership taking attitude

• Strong sense of purpose to work in this space (Tech4Good, ICT4D, Social Impact)

• Exceptional team management skills.

• Excellent verbal and written communication.

• Ability to multi-task and juggle various deadlines and domians

• Extensive industry knowledge with an eye towards the future.

• Prior experience of handling multiple projects in different domains at the same time

• Prior experience of managing large tech teams (50-200 engineers) including developers, designers, QAs, Das

and other teams

Qualification

Bachelor’s degree in software, computer science, engineering or any related STEM field. Have worked as a senior

engineering head or CTO in NGOs, Social Impact Consulting Firms CSR, Think Tanks, Research Organizations.

About First Principles

We are a Tech Holding Company and our portfolio companies generate millions in revenue. What is unique about FirstPrinciples is that most of our companies remain controlled and majority owned by First Principles and its team members rather than by external investors. We are proud that our product engineering team builds world class products from India. https://firstprinciples.io/">https://firstprinciples.io/

About this Role

As we scale and build our organisation, we would like to add an individual to our core Technical Leadership who can scale our key products and projects and help us build and foster relationships with Enterprise clients.

We are looking for an experienced Technology Leader to join our fast growing organisation to help us with driving Technical Strategy, Approach and oversee the Implementation for internal and external products. You should be someone who loves Engineering, have amazing debugging skills and slay problems with technology. 

In this role, you will undertake Technical / Solution Architecture and should also be able to help team with Engineering and coding wherever required. That includes, working along with the team, writing code, doing R&D or POCs, ensuring we follow modern industry standards and building beautiful high performing Software and Applications and thus delivering a better solution and product. You will also help FP build strong relationships with clients and technical leadership on the client side.

You would be required to have a minimum of 10+ years of experience with a mix of Engineering, DevOps, Infrastructure, Cyber - Network Security, Enterprise Application Maintenance, Database Management along with Project, Client and People Management skills which are necessary to lead the team and be their voice. You should be a leader and not just a manager who loves delegating things to the off-shore team, but rather someone who would not hesitate to take over Git-Pull and start writing code and show ‘here is how it’s done’ and amaze everyone with your expertise! :-) 

Because this is a Senior role, you would also be involved working with the Product/Project Manager and will be responsible for the delivery and output.

Tech Stack [High-Level]: We are JavaScript focused i.e. we work in ReactJS, NodeJS, AngularJS, TypeForm, TypeScript, Redis. On the server side, we work with AWS/GCP/DO. Database: MySQL, PostgreS and MongoDb. API: REST and GraphQL API. We also have a strong DevOps stack - including Kubernetes(K8), Dockers and CI/CD automation. 

Interview Process: 

• 60 min Discovery Call
• 15 mins introduction and what you bring to the table (We love people who say, “We build the damn table”) 
• 15 min understanding your experience and background
• 15 min on why you want to join our team and your expectations, future plans
• 15 min Q&A
  
  
• 60-90 min Technical Interview  (May be more than 1)
• Technical Call
  
  
• 45-60 min Final Call
• 15 min discussion on results 
• 15 min CTC expectations / negotiations 
• 15 min closure
• 15 min buffer

• Experience in defining new architectures, design all layers of the solution, create architectural blueprints that can be used for final code development.
• Interface with client business/technical teams to understand complex requirements.
• Anticipate on technological evolutions(example use MySQL Lite not MS SQL, use C# not ASP, don't use JSF use Angular).
• Resolve technical issues.
• Bridge between Developers, Project Managers/Leads, and Client, ensuring smooth communication channel.
• Ensure quality of project implementation deployed.
• Provide technical guidance to projects/programs for complex components of a multiple technology suites.
• Ensuring documentation of the complete project architecture.
• Lead actions to determine root cause of problems and drive resolution.
• Participate in cross-functional work groups to assess business needs, develop a systems architecture strategy, and implementation plans.
• Leads work groups that are responsible for software development.
• Ensure that all components of the technical architecture are properly integrated and implemented by the development team.
• Coach the technical team in the development of the technical architecture and help them solve challenging technical problems
• Provide technical support and technical quality control throughout all stages of the project.
• Spearheads the development, implementation and communications of architecture roadmap strategies to ensure that systems are scalable, reliable, secure, supportable, and achieve.
• Identify existing architecture weaknesses and find opportunities for process reengineering and perform cost benefit analysis

• Time Management- Organizes own workload to achieve maximum productivity and completes work in a timely and professional manner. Handles multiple short and long term modules by proper planning while anticipating potential problems and planning for contingencies.
• Identify high-potential team members for next level positions and creating learning and development plans for them.
• Enable strong process in place and reducing dependencies on individual.

Technical Skills and Qualification

• Excellent knowledge of Web technologies, Java, Javascript, Contact center environment.
• Experience of current technologies including Open Source, J2EE (JSP, Servlet, JSP, etc.), web application development, web services (REST/SOAP/XML), Rich Internet Applications, messaging infrastructures and databases.
• Adaptability and willingness to learn new tools and applications.
• Should be comfortable for 40%-60% coding.
• Able to convert requirements into executable code
• 9 to 12 yrs experience
• Qualification: BE/B-Tech /MCA or any equivalent degree

Desirables

• Excellent written and verbal communication skill
• Ability to lead discussions with all levels of the organization and provide balanced information of an idea or communication of an issue regardless of written or verbal
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across project teams.
• Having Analytical and problem-solving
• Ability to translate complex requirements into functional and Technical architecture
• Experience managing the technology aspect of multiple complex projects
• Ability to think ahead and anticipate problems, issues and solutions and Assist team members in complex task
• Willing to take ownership and being accountable.
• Openness, communicates honestly, openly, and consistently.
• Positive Attitude encourages a positive rather than negative viewpoint.
• Integrity maintains the highest standard of personal conduct in performing all duties.
• Should be a good listener.
• Dependable, can be relied upon to get the job done.
• Able to avoid mistakes that could/should be anticipated.
• Should be able sense and grab the opportunities to innovate and improvise.
• Very high competence in presentation skills.
• Negotiator: Excellent negotiation skills which comes handy in hard selling new ideas/ new technical implementations etc.
• Risk Management: Should be able to take calculated risks in trying out new technical implementation avenues
• Able to communicate the org level vision to the team effectively

• upGrad was awarded the Best Tech for Education by IAMAI for 2018-19,
• upGrad was also ranked as one of the LinkedIn Top Startups 2018: The 25 most sought-after startups in India.
• upGrad was earlier selected as one of the top ten most innovative companies in India by FastCompany.
• We were also covered by the Financial Times along with other disruptors in Ed-Tech.
• upGrad is the official education partner for Government of India - Startup India program.
• Our program with IIIT B has been ranked #1 program in the country in the domain of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

• Work with Product Managers and Business to understand business/product requirements and vision.
• Provide a clear architectural vision in line with business and product vision.
• Lead a team of architects, developers, and data engineers to provide platform services to other engineering teams.
• Provide architectural oversight to engineering teams across the organization.
• Hands on design and development of platform services and features owned by self - this is a hands-on coding role.
• Define guidelines for best practices covering design, unit testing, secure coding etc.
• Ensure quality by reviewing design, code, test plans, load test plans etc. as appropriate.
• Work closely with the QA and Support teams to track quality and proactively identify improvement opportunities.
• Work closely with DevOps and IT to ensure highly secure and cost optimized operations in the cloud.
• Grow technical skills in the team - identify skill gaps with plans to address them, participate in hiring, mentor other architects and engineers.
• Support other engineers in resolving complex technical issues as a go-to person.

• 12+ years of experience in design and development of ecommerce scale systems and highly scalable SaaS or enterprise products.
• Extensive experience in developing extensible and scalable web applications with
  • Java, Spring Boot, Go
  • Web Services - REST, OAuth, OData
  • Database/Caching - MySQL, Cassandra, MongoDB, Memcached/Redis
  • Queue/Broker services - RabbitMQ/Kafka
  • Microservices architecture via Docker on AWS or Azure.
  • Experience with web front end technologies - HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript libraries and frameworks such as jQuery, AngularJS, React, Vue.js, Bootstrap etc.

• Extensive experience with cloud based architectures and how to optimize design for cost.
• Expert level understanding of secure application design practices and a working understanding of cloud infrastructure security.
• Experience with CI/CD processes and design for testability.
• Experience working with big data technologies such as Spark/Storm/Hadoop/Data Lake Architectures is a big plus.
• Action and result-oriented problem-solver who works well both independently and as part of a team; able to foster and develop others' ideas as well as his/her own.
• Ability to organize, prioritize and schedule a high workload and multiple parallel projects efficiently.
• Excellent verbal and written communication with stakeholders in a matrixed environment.
• Long term experience with at least one product from inception to completion and evolution of the product over multiple years.