Lead Architect

About the role

Rumor is a venture studio that builds and partners with agencies, startups and Fortune 500 companies across North America and Europe. Our team works across North America, LATAM, Europe and India.

We are hiring a hands-on Lead Architect to drive application architecture, AI tooling, DevOps and engineering innovation across one of our clients located in the US.

This is not a traditional management or architecture-only role. We want a proactive, technically strong individual contributor who can move between designing solutions, setting up CI/CD pipelines, implementing AI-powered development workflows, and rapidly prototyping new services. Someone who takes ownership, identifies opportunities to improve how we build software, and turns ideas into working solutions.

What you will do

Application Architecture

• Design scalable, secure and maintainable architectures for new applications, services and solutions.

• Provide technical direction on application design, integrations and modernization.

• Work closely with developers and product teams to translate requirements into technical solutions.

AI & Engineering Innovation

• Evaluate and implement AI-powered development tools and workflows to improve engineering productivity.

• Explore tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude and similar platforms.

• Drive AI adoption across development processes and identify opportunities for automation.

DevOps & CI/CD

• Set up and optimize CI/CD pipelines, build processes and deployment workflows.

• Improve DevOps practices, automation and release management.

• Work with cloud infrastructure and deployment environments.

Rapid Prototyping

• Build proof of concepts and rapid prototypes to validate new ideas and technologies.

• Take ownership of hands-on technical implementation where required.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend solutions that improve development efficiency.

Who you are

• A hands-on technical leader who enjoys both architecture and implementation.

• Proactive and independent, with a strong sense of ownership.

• Comfortable working across application development, DevOps and cloud infrastructure.

• Someone who can move quickly from an idea to a working prototype.

• A strong problem solver who can guide developers without directly managing them.

• An effective communicator who can work with distributed teams across time zones.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in software development, application architecture or senior engineering roles.

• Strong hands-on experience with PHP and application architecture.

• Proven experience with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipeline implementation.

• Experience with AI development tools and AI-assisted engineering workflows.

• Cloud experience, preferably Microsoft Azure. AWS or Google Cloud experience is also acceptable.

• Strong understanding of APIs, microservices, system integrations and scalable application design.

• Experience with Git, Docker and deployment automation.

• Ability to build prototypes and proof of concepts independently.

• Strong technical problem-solving and communication skills.

• Must be based in Canada, preferably within the Eastern Time (ET) zone.

Hours and availability

The candidate must be based in Canada, preferably within the Eastern Time Zone (ET), with availability to collaborate with distributed teams across North America, Europe and India.

Flexible availability may be required for technical discussions, deployments and critical project initiatives.

Bonus

• Experience with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions or Jenkins.

• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Terraform and Infrastructure as Code.

• Experience modernizing legacy PHP applications.

• Experience implementing AI agents, workflow automation or AI integrations.

• Previous experience as a Lead Architect, Principal Engineer or Staff Engineer.