About the role

ContactVerse runs one platform serving 27 industry verticals, with a Core layer that every vertical depends on and a set of architectural rules that only hold if somebody defends them. The most important of those: no industry vertical ever calls an AI vendor directly. Everything routes through Core against a region-scoped provider registry. That rule exists because the alternative is a hardcoded provider in every vertical, which is precisely the defect we have already had to remove once. This role owns the architecture and the authority to refuse a design that breaks it.

What you will do

• Own the reference architecture. Across Core, the industry verticals and the admin platform, including service boundaries and what belongs where.
• Defend the architectural rules. No vertical calls an AI vendor directly. Provider selection is Core-mediated. The registry is not advisory. These are enforced at review, not hoped for.
• Own data model governance. A table originates in the requirement sheet, not in somebody's migration. Documentation reconciles three sets (required and built, required and not built, built and not required) and drift carries a next action and the place to apply it.
• Review the designs that are expensive to undo. Not every change, but every change that is hard to reverse.
• Own API and integration conventions. Repo numbering, endpoint paths, agent types and the naming that keeps 27 verticals legible.
• Own the migration strategy. Database migrations are the highest-risk routine operation in this estate, and the strategy for them is yours to set.
• Set the technical standard for new verticals. So that vertical number 12 costs less than vertical number 2 did.
• Work with the SVPs rather than above them. You own what it should look like; they own whether it runs and whether it ships.
• Keep the documentation honest. The published data model is what developers build from, so a change that stops at the workbook has not landed.

Your first year

First 90 days. The reference architecture documented and agreed, with the rules that are not negotiable made explicit.

By six months. Design review operating, and the data model governed so a table originates in the requirement.

By twelve months. An architecture the team builds to without being told.

What you will bring

• Twelve years or more in engineering, including principal or chief architect in a multi-service product.
• Has held an architectural line against a deadline, and been proved right.
• Deep experience of multi-tenant SaaS and the data isolation it demands.
• Has designed a platform serving more than one vertical or product from shared foundations.
• Strong on data modelling and migration strategy against live systems.
• Writes architecture people actually read and build from.
• Reviews designs without becoming the bottleneck in delivery.
• Comfortable being accountable for decisions whose cost appears two years later.

Nice to have

• Python, FastAPI and AWS.
• Experience of AI and model-serving architectures, including provider abstraction.
• Event-driven and asynchronous architectures.
• Contact-centre, voice or messaging platforms.
• Has written and maintained a documentation estate generated from source.

What you will work with

Python and FastAPI on AWS, services numbered and split by product and by industry vertical, Alembic migrations in dedicated migration repositories, a Core-mediated AI layer with a region-scoped provider registry, and a documentation site generated from the requirement sheet and reconciled against the code.

What this role is not

Not an ivory tower. You review real designs against real deadlines and your decisions are tested in code.

How we work

The team works to a UK-aligned pattern, with the main working overlap in the evening IST. These hours are indicative and may change as the business changes; any change would be discussed rather than imposed. Development happens on company-provided remote machines. Everything is remote and nobody is in an office.

We are a small company and we write things down. Decisions are recorded, corrections are made to the source rather than to the output, and status is expected to be honest even when it is unwelcome.

Compensation and what we offer

• A long-term incentive, discussed at offer stage for senior appointments.
• Fully remote working, with company-provided equipment where the role requires it.
• A role with unusual scope for its level, because the organisation is being built rather than joined.
• Direct access to the founders. There are no layers between this role and the people making the decisions.

How we will assess you

We assess against three or four weighted signals agreed before we read a single CV, rather than against years of experience or a list of tools. Expect four stages:

• Introductory conversation with our People team. About 30 minutes, covering the role, your background and what you are looking for. This first conversation may be with an AI assistant; you will be told at the time and may ask to speak to a person instead.
• Conversation with the hiring manager. About 60 minutes, going deep on what you have done and how you think.
• A working session on a real ContactVerse problem. About 90 minutes. Not a whiteboard exercise and not a take-home test you do unpaid in your evenings.
• Final conversation with the founders. Covering fit, expectations and how we would work together.

We aim to complete the process within three weeks and to give you a decision, with reasons, within three working days of the final stage.

Equal opportunity

ContactVerse is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications regardless of age, disability, gender identity or expression, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We select against the published signals for the role and nothing else. If you need an adjustment at any stage of the process, tell us and we will make it. It will not count against you.

Research consistently shows that some candidates apply only when they meet every criterion. If this role interests you and you meet most of what is listed, please apply.

How to apply

Write to career@contactverse.ai quoting reference POS-011, with your CV and a short note (a few paragraphs is plenty) on the part of this role you would most want to get your hands on, and why.