Integration & API Architect

Integration & API Architect

Duties & Responsibilities

• Define integration reference architecture covering APIs, events, messaging, and interoperability patterns.
• Own API governance: OpenAPI/AsyncAPI standards, naming, versioning, backward compatibility, lifecycle, and deprecation.
• Define secure API access patterns (Entra/OIDC, token scopes, mTLS, API keys where needed), rate limits, and quotas.
• Design event-driven architecture patterns and standards (topics, schemas, ordering, retries, dead-letter queues, idempotency).
• Establish data contract practices (schema registry, validation, consumer-driven contracts, contract testing in CI).
• Define integration resiliency patterns (timeouts, retries, circuit breakers, bulkheads, caching) and observability requirements.
• Govern use of API gateways and integration runtimes, including productization of APIs in the service catalog.
• Drive integration onboarding for vendors and use cases: connectivity, private endpoints, service exposure, and monitoring.
• Provide architecture assurance and technical leadership across multiple vendors; review designs and validate implementation.
• Support operations: integration runbooks, SLA/SLO dashboards, incident RCA patterns, and continuous improvement backlog.

Skills & Abilities

• Strong expertise in API design and integration architecture (REST, events, streaming, async workflows).
• Ability to define practical standards and enforce governance across multiple delivery teams/vendors.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems reliability patterns and integration observability.
• Strong security mindset for APIs and data movement in regulated environments.
• Excellent documentation and communication skills (contracts, diagrams, standards, playbooks).

Education & Background

• Bachelor’s degree in

Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity

• , or related field; Master’s degree highly preferred.
• 8+ years in integration architecture or senior engineering roles for enterprise platforms.
• Experience with API gateways and event streaming/messaging in production at scale.
• Experience integrating identity platforms (Entra/OIDC), private networking, and secure service exposure models.
• Proven record delivering integration governance (catalogs, standards, versioning, testing strategies).
• Experience working with system integrators/vendors and defining acceptance criteria for integration deliverables.

Preferred Tools

• API & governance: OpenAPI/AsyncAPI, Postman, Swagger tooling, schema registries
• Gateways & messaging: Azure API Management / Apigee / Kong; Kafka / Event Hubs; queues with DLQ
• Observability & delivery: OpenTelemetry, Dynatrace/Datadog, GitHub/Azure DevOps, contract testing frameworks

Soft Skills

• Strong facilitation for cross-team integration alignment and standards adoption
• Ability to simplify complex integration landscapes into clear patterns and decisions
• Negotiation skills to manage competing stakeholder/vendor requirements
• Proactive risk management and ownership of integration quality outcomes
• Collaborative, delivery-oriented mindset with strong attention to detail
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to convey complex governance concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Acts as a trusted advisor, fostering cross-functional collaboration and upholding high ethical and professional standards
• Builds productive relationships across all organizational levels, promoting transparency, accountability, and responsible data/AI use