Calling All Upstarters!

SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT WANTED!

We are Upstart 13. We are humble, hungry, and competent people who are radically changing the expectations and experience of outsourcing for all participants by challenging barriers that create inequality and by bringing down borders in technology for people everywhere. We’re all about delivering value and doing big things. We have become a game changer for teams around the world who look to Upstart’s services as a differentiator.

Job Description

We are currently seeking a highly skilled and experienced Solution Architect with strong Python expertise and solid knowledge of Microsoft Azure cloud environments to join our dynamic team.
In this role, you will be responsible for defining, designing, and overseeing the implementation of robust, scalable cloud-native solutions built primarily with Python technologies. This position emphasizes architectural leadership (70%) combined with hands-on technical contribution (30%), ensuring that solutions are practical, scalable, secure, and aligned with business objectives.
The Solution Architect collaborates closely with development and operations teams to guide infrastructure decisions, improve engineering standards, and evolve the technical ecosystem. This role does not include formal people management but requires strong technical influence and mentorship capabilities.

Responsibilities

Define and Develop Architectural Strategy:

• Create detailed architecture blueprints and technical roadmaps aligned with business objectives.

• Establish architectural standards and best practices for Python/Django-based systems.

• Design scalable distributed systems leveraging Celery, Redis, and PostgreSQL.

• Evaluate trade-offs between scalability, cost, performance, and maintainability.

• Define long-term technical direction and system evolution strategy.

• Design solutions using Azure Container Apps and Azure Container Registry.

• Define best practices for resource organization, permissions management, and cost optimization.

• Ensure high availability, resilience, and secure cloud configurations.

• Guide Infrastructure-as-Code practices (experience with Bicep is a plus).

DevOps Enablement:

• Drive adoption and optimization of Azure DevOps (mandatory).

• Define and improve CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies.

• Promote automation and operational excellence.

• Improve observability through monitoring and logging strategies.

Hands-On Technical Contribution (30%):

• Contribute directly to backend architecture and critical implementations in Python/Django.

• Support and review distributed task systems using Celery.

• Optimize Redis caching strategies.

• Improve PostgreSQL schema design, indexing, and performance tuning.

• Participate in complex debugging and production issue resolution when necessary.

AI & Emerging Technologies:

• Evaluate and support integration of AI capabilities into backend systems.
•Familiarity with tools such as Azure AI Foundry, Llama models, LangChain, CrewAI, and OpenAI SDK.
• Understand architectural implications of AI-enabled systems.

Team & Technical Growth:

• Identify capability gaps within the engineering team.

• Mentor and guide engineers to elevate technical maturity.

• Promote engineering best practices and continuous improvement.

• Influence technical decisions without formal authority.

Qualifications

Technical Skills:

• 10+ years of professional experience in software engineering, including architectural responsibilities.

• Strong hands-on experience with Python and Django.

• Proven experience designing distributed systems in production environments.

• Strong expertise with Celery and Redis.

• Deep understanding of PostgreSQL (schema design, indexing, performance optimization).

• Strong knowledge of Azure cloud architecture and services.

• Experience with Azure DevOps (required).

• Experience with Azure Container Apps and Azure Container Registry.

• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and DevOps best practices.

• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (Bicep is a plus).

• Strong understanding of cloud security, RBAC, and governance best practices.

• Familiarity with workflow systems and orchestration patterns.

• Capacity to evaluate complex systems and design pragmatic solutions.

• Strategic thinking with hands-on execution capability.

• Proactive mindset with strong ownership.

• Excellent communication skills across technical and business stakeholders.

• Openness to exploring emerging technologies and best practices.

• Familiarity with Azure AI Foundry, Llama, LangChain, CrewAI, or OpenAI SDK.

• Azure certifications.

• Experience in modernizing or scaling existing architectures.

• Experience in high-transaction or workflow-heavy systems.

Why Upstart13?

• We put people first at Upstart 13! We believe the world is filled with amazing people and we are willing to go to great lengths to seek out others who share our values to join our cause of bringing down borders in technology for people everywhere.

• We develop leaders at Upstart 13, we focus on what matters to do meaningful work, we own our shit, we stay curious, and we understand responsibility leads to giving. We do big things together!

Perks:

• Job type: long-term, full-time job.

• Fully remote.

• USD competitive salary.

• 20+ Paid time off days.

Are you ready to join our cause? Be sure to ask, “why 13?”