Job Description

About Certa

Certa (getcerta.com) is a Silicon Valley–based startup automating the vendor, supplier, and other stakeholder onboarding processes for companies across industries and geographies. With several Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 clients, we tackle complex, large-scale challenges that are redefining how businesses (big and small) operate.

Our Team

We’re an engineering-first organization where technical excellence meets product ownership. At Certa, engineers don’t just build what’s on the roadmap—they help define it. You’ll work alongside peers who thrive on tackling ambitious problems and who take initiative to shape the product vision. If you want to influence both the technology and the product direction in a fast-paced startup environment, you’ll love being part of our team.

The Role

As a Principal Architect at Certa, you will have the autonomy to drive architectural decisions and influence the product roadmap. This role blends hands-on coding, strategic planning, and product leadership to ensure our platform not only meets but anticipates customer needs. You’ll collaborate closely with cross-functional stakeholders—from Product to Sales to Customer Success—to continuously refine how our solutions deliver value at scale.

What You’ll Own & Influence

1. Strategic Roadmap & Vision

   • Collaborate with Product, Business, and Executive teams to define and drive the technical vision and product evolution.
   • Champion a deeply tech-driven culture, identifying and advocating for innovations that solve real customer problems.
   • Evaluate emerging technologies to ensure we stay ahead of the curve in both product capabilities and technical stack.

2. Cross-Functional Collaboration

   • Partner with Product Managers to co-create feature requirements, ensuring feasibility and alignment with user needs.
   • Work with Sales and Customer Success to gather feedback, shape product priorities, and clarify complex customer requirements.
   • Communicate architectural concepts to both technical and non-technical teams, bridging business goals with technical possibilities.

3. Impact & Ownership

   • Set architectural standards, patterns, and frameworks adopted across the engineering organization.
   • Take on a product management mindset—leading discovery, participating in user feedback loops, and iterating quickly based on insights.
   • Influence every stage of the software development lifecycle, from feature ideation through production releases.

4. Team Composition & Support

   • Mentor and guide senior engineers, providing support on architecture, design, and product-driven thinking.
   • Shape team structures and processes to maintain a balance between fast iteration and robust, scalable engineering.
   • Foster an environment of ownership, innovation, and continuous learning, where every engineer feels empowered to think like a product owner.

5. Reinforcing the “Why”

   • Our domain spans compliance, risk assessment, background checks, multi-party integrations, and more—at massive scale.
   • You’ll tackle complex design challenges: from high-throughput data pipelines to automating intricate onboarding workflows across diverse enterprise systems.
   • Your work has real-world impact, helping global organizations streamline critical processes and usher in a new era of efficiency.

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ Years of Experience: Demonstrated success in designing and shipping production-ready systems at scale, with a strong track record in SaaS or enterprise environments.
• System Design Expertise: Proven ability to architect solutions that handle up to 100k QPS in production, along with deep knowledge of distributed systems.
• Architectural Trade-Offs: Comfortable discussing and negotiating different approaches, leveraging both theoretical knowledge and hands-on expertise.
• Advanced Coding Skills: Mastery of at least one programming language (Python and GoLang are highly desirable). Strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and performance engineering.
• Multi-Tenant Systems: Hands-on experience building multi-tenant platforms with complex performance, security, and product considerations.
• Live Distributed Systems: Successfully designed, developed, and maintained distributed systems, scaling them in live production environments.
• SaaS Know-How: Experience handling quotas, throttling, permissions, and payment model complexities in large-scale SaaS platforms.
• Product Mindset: Ability to think beyond code, bridging customer needs with technical feasibility, and shaping long-term product roadmaps.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• Architect & Design: Lead conceptualization of new features, modules, and system improvements for long-term scalability and reliability—while keeping a close eye on user value.
• Drive Feature Development: Write high-quality code, oversee technical implementations, and ensure final deliverables exceed both technical and product expectations.
• Testing & Issue Resolution: Champion rigorous testing, tackle performance bottlenecks, and guide quick resolutions for critical issues.
• Reviews & Feedback: Offer constructive feedback on code reviews and designs, upholding best practices that elevate the entire engineering org.
• Mentorship: Foster team growth by coaching, pairing, and sharing knowledge—cultivating the next generation of architects, tech leads, and product-minded engineers.

Why You’ll Love Working Here

• Best-in-Class Compensation: We value top talent with competitive salaries, stock options, and performance-based rewards.
• Fully Remote & Flexible: Work from anywhere, on schedules that cater to productivity and personal well-being.
• Engineering-First Culture: Innovate, learn, and tackle ambitious technical and product challenges in a culture that prizes experimentation and impact.
• Continuous Learning: Access to courses, conferences, and workshops for your professional growth—both technically and in product leadership.
• Multiple Career Paths: Pursue the Architect track (deep technical design) or the Tech Lead track (team leadership)—both involve product ownership at Certa.
• Generous Benefits: Paid vacation, comprehensive health coverage, parental leave, yearly offsites, quarterly hacker houses, workstation setup allowance, and more.
• Collaborate with a Rockstar Team: Join highly skilled peers and entrepreneurs who think big, move fast, and thrive on taking ownership—both in code and product strategy.