The company is seeking a Senior Architect–Engineer to play a pivotal role in the modernization of ZIMS, our 12+ year legacy application. This is a true hybrid role approximately 50% architecture and systems analysis and 50% hands-on engineering designed for a senior technologist who can both set architectural direction and work directly in the codebase alongside the product engineering team.
This role is not about big-bang rewrites or abstract documentation. Instead, it focuses on incremental, pragmatic modernization, running legacy and modern systems in parallel, and helping the team move faster and more safely as the platform evolves.
The ideal candidate brings deep experience modernizing legacy systems, strong judgment in constrained environments, and the ability to lead through execution rather than authority alone.
What You’ll Work On:
Legacy Modernization & Architecture:
● Analyze and deeply understand the existing ZIMS legacy architecture, including extensive business logic embedded in SQL Server stored procedures and database centric workflows.
● Develop and communicate a practical modernization strategy, grounded in real constraints (limited resources, high system criticality, nonprofit environment).
● Define and evolve architectural patterns that enable incremental migration rather than big-bang disruptive rewrites.
● Guide architectural decisions that allow legacy and modernized components to run safely in parallel.
● Propose clear, phased approaches for decomposing and migrating functionality over time.
Hands-On Engineering (50%):
● Work directly in the codebase alongside the product engineering team.
● Refactor business logic from stored procedures and database layers into application/service layers with appropriate test coverage.
● Implement modernization patterns while enabling and assisting with delivery of product features.
● Lead by example through code, design decisions, and technical tradeoff discussions.
● Participate in code reviews and technical design discussions with a focus on maintainability, correctness, and long-term sustainability.
Collaboration & Cross-Team Impact:
● Partner closely with:
– Product Engineering (primary team; currently a small, senior-leaning group)
– SRE and Data Engineering teams as modernization efforts intersect with reliability and the Data Hub initiative.
– Product Management and Design partners in early ideation stages and ongoing collaboration.
● Ensure architectural changes do not negatively impact downstream data consumers, reporting, or data sharing initiatives.
● Communicate technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Technical Environment:
Current & Modernization Stack:
● Backend: Java, Kotlin, Spring Boot, JPA, Hibernate.
● Frontend: React, TypeScript (legacy includes Vue.js)
● Database: SQL Server (heavy use of stored procedures and UDFs)
● Cloud: Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
● Legacy: .NET Framework–based components.
● Tooling: Linear (project management), Slack, Confluence/SharePoint/Google Drive, Miro, IntelliJ (preferred but not mandated)
While familiarity with the full stack is beneficial, deep SQL Server expertise and experience working with database-heavy legacy systems is critical. Senior-level adaptability is expected for other technologies.
Must Have:
● 8+ years of software engineering experience, including senior-level responsibility.
● Proven leadership on at least one large-scale legacy application modernization.
● Demonstrated experience running legacy and modern systems in parallel.
● Strong experience refactoring business logic out of databases:
– Migrating stored procedures and user-defined functions into application layers.
– Preserving data integrity, validation, and correctness.
● Deep understanding of architectural tradeoffs and the ability to clearly explain decisions.
● Comfort working in small, senior teams with high ownership and minimal role silos.
● Strong technical leadership paired with pragmatism—able to move the system forward without overengineering.
● Experience working in environments with limited resources (nonprofit or small-to-mid-sized organizations is a plus).
● Experience with system integrations (ERP, OMS, CRM, CMS, authentication services, fulfillment, etc.).
● Strong technical knowledge of SQL, stored procedures, data warehousing, and , web services.
● Demonstrated experience using AI-assisted tooling to accelerate system discovery and analysis.
● Experience using Agile and Scrum for software development.
● Experience using JIRA, Linear, or similar project tracking tools
Soft Skills:
● Proactive, thoughtful, and results-driven.
● Outstanding communication skills in facilitating discussions, communicating insights, and presenting to internal and client stakeholders.
● Creative problem solver with ability to adapt quickly in a fast-paced environment.
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