Principal Application Architect

We’re looking for a seasoned Principal Application Architect with deep engineering expertise to join our Product Engineering function in Sofia, Bulgaria, and to serve as General Manager of our Sofia office. Reporting directly to the Head of Product Engineering, you’ll steer application architecture, execution and operational excellence for our flagship, customer-facing platform.

You will:

• Safeguard architectural integrity and drive continuous optimisation of our distributed, event-driven microservices.
• Lead our cloud strategy — Azure preferred (AWS experience also welcome).
• Apply solid expertise in data analytics and machine learning.
• Embed security best practice into every layer of the stack.

Alongside your technical remit, you’ll oversee Sofia-based teams, nurturing their delivery and culture in your capacity as local General Manager.

This is a hybrid role that requires you to be in our Sofia office two days a week. Please apply only if you’re comfortable with this arrangement. 

What you'll be doing

• Sofia Leadership & Team Growth: Alongside the People Manager, act as a key member of the Sofia Leadership team, ensuring the smooth operational running of the office. Provide leadership to the Sofia-based teams of ~80 people, fostering a high-performance culture while managing direct growth of engineering. Sponsor and advocate for business decisions for our Sofia office.  
• Technical Leadership: Drive and execute the strategic vision for product engineering, focusing on the architecture of our services and our domain boundaries, advise and assist with initiatives that will minimise and reduce our technical debt.  
• Security & Compliance: Embed a cyber-first mindset, ensuring ways of working and technology components and configuration align with industry best practices and procedures.  
• Driving Culture: Cultivate a high-performance culture within our Sofia office. Encourage engineering efficiency and alignment with business goals. 
• Engineering Mentor: Provide mentoring to Product Engineering tribes on platform-wide solutions and large-scale platform architecture. 
• Collaboration: Partner closely with platform engineering, security and operational teams to align platform capabilities with business goals. 
• Stakeholder Management: Act as a senior technology leader within the business, interfacing with senior executives and external partners. 
• iGaming Experience (Preferred): Experience working in a high-transaction, B2B or B2C environment where high volume, real-time processing, availability, and stability of services are critical. 

What we are looking for

• Proven background in building and architecting distributed microservices with an event-driven architecture. 
• Proven leadership skills across multiple teams with the ability to mentor engineering staff and drive cultural development for the Sofia-based teams. 
• Ability to foster a high-performing, collaborative culture through clear communication, strategic thinking, and a strong people-first approach. 
• A proven communicator and influencer able to effectively articulate technical strategies, build alignment across teams, and drive high levels of autonomy. 
• Ability to drive complex technical initiatives, providing support for the engineering teams and articulate the technical solutions to a variety of stakeholders. 
• Demonstrate strong change management and resilience to see business change initiatives completed in full. 
• Strong operational experience in monitoring, logging, and observability, utilising ELK, Prometheus, Grafana. 
• Robust understanding of security best practices within cloud infrastructure and software engineering. 
• Strong software engineering background, with hands-on experience in modern development practices and CI/CD pipelines. 
• Demonstrated experience in B2B or B2C environments, preferably in iGaming or other high-volume transactional sectors. 
• Strong stakeholder management skills, able to work cross-functionally with platform engineering, security, operations and other key business leaders. 

What we can offer you

Role-Specific Benefits: 

• A high-impact leadership role in a rapidly growing and innovative company. 
• The opportunity to help shape the technical architecture of our platform in a business-critical function. 
• A dynamic, high-growth, and collaborative environment with cutting-edge technology. 
• Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits package. 

Bede Benefits:

Here at Bede, we offer a great benefits package and a competitive salary as you would expect from a forward-thinking and people-centric organisation. What sets us apart is our desire to look after our people in the best way we can and to ensure we are offering the best to our colleagues by asking for feedback, so you’ll be pleased to know our benefits package is always being reviewed.

• A friendly, flexible and trust-based approach to working 
• 25 days annual leave and additional paid ‘Bede’ holidays throughout the year and at Christmas
• Premium Private Healthcare and Dental care with Uniqa, from day 1!
• Innovation time – Engineers have regular opportunities to spend time developing skills and innovating.
• Flexi-Funds – A monthly bonus of 115 BGN to support bills and essential expenses your way!
• Food vouchers – 120 BGN per month
• Lots of social events – inside and outside of the working day
• A great office life! Free snacks and refreshments in the office every day
• Bede swag – from Zoodies to t-shirts and even socks!
• Access to Calm app – the #1 app for meditation and sleep 
• Referral Programme – help us grow our team with like-minded individuals and be rewarded 6000 BGN (pre-tax)