Lead Technical Architect, MERN

About the role

The Lead Technical Architect (MERN) at Merkle (Dentsu ecosystem) in Bengaluru owns end-to-end architecture for large-scale MERN platforms and digital products. Day-to-day, the role remains hands-on (~70%) in architecture, coding, code reviews, POCs, and critical feature delivery while mentoring Engineering Leads, defining target-state architecture, microservices patterns, API standards, and cloud-native design principles. The architect collaborates across Product, Delivery, Architecture, Security, and DevOps/SRE to translate business goals into technical roadmaps, drive technical decisions on scalability, security, resiliency, observability, and performance, and shepherd solutions through governance for internal and external clients.

What you’ll do

• Own end-to-end architecture for large-scale MERN platforms and digital products.
• Remain hands-on in architecture, coding, code reviews, troubleshooting, POCs, and critical feature delivery (approximately 70% of role).
• Define target-state architecture, microservices patterns, API standards, event-driven architecture, and cloud-native design principles.
• Drive technical decisions around scalability, security, resiliency, observability, and performance.
• Lead engineering teams across design, development, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Establish coding standards, design reviews, architecture governance, and reusable frameworks.
• Mentor architects and senior engineers and build technical capability across teams.
• Collaborate with Product, Delivery, Business, and Client stakeholders to translate business goals into technical roadmaps.

What you’ll bring

• 12+ years overall experience with 4+ years in Technical Architect or Lead Architect roles.
• Expert MERN stack knowledge: MongoDB, Mongoose, Express.js, React.js, Node.js, and TypeScript.
• Strong expertise in distributed systems, microservices, REST APIs, and GraphQL.
• Hands-on experience with Azure or other public cloud platforms.
• CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code, and DevSecOps practices.
• Kafka or equivalent event streaming platforms.
• Deep understanding of SOLID principles, design patterns, TDD/BDD, and automated testing.
• Experience designing high-volume, highly available systems.

Nice to have

• Working knowledge of API gateways (Kong or equivalent), ABAC solutions (Symphonic or equivalent), CMS platforms (Strapi or equivalent).
• Working on Developer Portals or documentation relating to shared development services.
• Experience of Docker and/or Kubernetes an advantage.
• Working knowledge of DataBricks/Spark (using Python and associated frameworks).
• Working knowledge of Azure Data Lake and Azure Blob storage.

Skills