The job in short

As a Lead Principal Solution Architect, you set the technical direction on our most strategic banking engagements and make sure ambitious solutions actually ship. You are equally at home in deep architecture reviews with a client’s Chief Architect and in executive conversations with the CTO or COO. With years of designing large web-scale platforms behind you, you hold the full picture of a multi-year transformation without losing the detail. To our implementation teams, you are the trusted escalation point. To customers and partners, you are the senior voice they want in the room when the stakes are highest.

Meet the job

You take lead architect responsibility on the largest and most complex programs in the region. You translate business ambition into an architecture that holds up under scrutiny: integration, security, performance, scalability, resilience, and long-term maintainability. You shape the target state, the transition path, and the trade-offs the customer needs to understand before they commit.
You work across the full deal and delivery cycle. In pre-sales you partner with Sales and Solutions Engineering to win strategic opportunities, owning the architecture story from discovery through contract. In delivery you stay engaged at the moments that matter: inception, major design decisions, and the hard problems that surface mid-program. You do not manage a team of architects, but you raise the bar for the ones around you through design reviews, reference architectures, and worked examples.

You also contribute to how Backbase sells and delivers at scale. That includes producing reference designs, patterns, and points of view that other architects reuse, feeding field learnings back to Product and Engineering, and representing Backbase architecture in senior customer forums, analyst briefings, and partner conversations. Travel is significant, especially during inception and at key program milestones.

How about you?
        •       You have a decade or more of hands-on experience designing large Java platforms in production;
        •       Spring, Maven, and a modern CI/CD toolchain are second nature to you;
        •       You have strong, experience-backed opinions on Service Oriented and Micro-Services Architectures and when each is the right call;
        •       You understand modern front-end delivery: JavaScript frameworks, MVC patterns, and REST API design including RAML and/or OpenAPI;
        •       When we ask you about architectural frameworks, you reach for them instinctively rather than looking them up;
        •       You have worked deeply with Enterprise Integration Patterns and integration frameworks;
        •       You have operational depth across application servers, databases, load balancers, and the rest of the stack that keeps a high-availability deployment healthy;
        •       You have excellent written and spoken English and can hold a room from senior engineer to C-level.

We will be extra happy if you:
        •       Have delivered solutions for large financial services organisations, especially retail or commercial banking;
        •       Have shipped at scale on public cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP) with containers and Kubernetes in production;
        •       Are fluent in patterns like CQRS, event sourcing, and event-driven integration;
        •       Have hands-on experience with API gateways, integration platforms, and identity systems in a banking context;
        •       Have spoken at industry events or published on banking architecture topics.

Join our team at Backbase, you will work with some of the sharpest people in digital banking, on programs that matter to the banks behind them and the millions of customers they serve. If you want senior technical ownership without stepping off the tools, this is the role.

The Job in short

Over 75 million people interact with banking products built on Backbase. Every model you ship here touches real accounts, real decisions, and real financial lives - at scale. That's the standard this role is built around.

Backbase leads in AI-native banking technology, helping the world's biggest banks move from fragmented systems to unified frontlines where humans and AI agents work together. We power 100+ of the largest banks globally, and our AI capabilities sit at the core of that shift. 

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer, you will define how intelligent systems operate in this environment: not just predicting outcomes, but making safe, auditable, and real-time decisions within a controlled execution model.

Reasons to build with us

Real-world impact at scale: Your models run in production for 150+ million end users across the globe's leading banks.

AI at the core: We're building the AI-native Banking OS from the ground up - ML engineering here shapes the product direction, not just the feature roadmap.

High-ownership culture: We ship early, iterate fast, and trust engineers to make decisive calls. You'll move at speed without layers of approval slowing you down.

"We don't debate AI in the abstract - we build it and put it in front of real banks. The engineers who thrive here are the ones who start with the problem, own the outcome, and raise the bar every sprint. That's the culture we've built, and it shows in what we ship.

- VP of Engineering, AI & Data

Meet the job

You'll be a key architect of Backbase's AI capabilities. That means moving fast, owning your work end-to-end, and building ML systems that solve real problems for banking partners - not theoretical models that gather dust.

That means:

● Designing, developing, and deploying production-grade ML models that personalize the banking experience and automate complex financial workflows

● Partnering with product and data teams to integrate AI capabilities directly into the Banking Platform

● Taking full ownership of the end-to-end ML lifecycle - from data discovery and feature engineering through to model monitoring and retraining

● Turning complex data architectures into clean, maintainable ML pipelines and APIs

● Running rigorous code reviews and mentoring mid-level engineers to keep raising the technical bar

● Identifying opportunities to apply AI where it removes friction and adds measurable value for end users

How about you

You're a seasoned engineer who thrives in a straight-talk culture. You don't settle for the industry standard - yesterday's best work is today's baseline, and you're always looking for what's next. Deep technical chops and a customer-first mindset aren't in tension for you; they're the same thing.

Your track record also shows:

● 5+ years designing and deploying large-scale ML systems in production environments

● Strong proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.)

● Experience with LLMs, RAG, or agent-based systems in production

Solid MLOps experience:

CI/CD for ML

model versioning

monitoring and observability

● Experience with data and streaming systems (e.g., Spark, Kafka)

● The ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders, without oversimplifying or over-complicating

● A proven ability to make decisive technical choices, meet deadlines, and keep momentum in a fast-moving environment

Why Backbase

Backbase is where ambitious engineers come to do the most consequential work of their careers. We're growing fast, we build in the open, and we hold ourselves accountable to outcomes that show up in the real world - not just on slides.

We also offer:

● Competitive salary and performance-based bonus

● Flexible working arrangements and a hybrid setup

● Access to top-tier tools, cloud infrastructure, and ML platforms

● A learning budget to keep your skills sharp and your career moving

Collaborative teams across Amsterdam, Atlanta, Bangalore, and beyond

● A culture where straight talk is valued and good ideas win regardless of where they come from

● The chance to build AI systems that run at the scale of global banking - and see the results

Role Summary

We're building the team that's building the future of banking. And we need a Chief of Staff to the CEO and Senior Leadership Team.

At Backbase, we're not just adding AI features to legacy systems. We're re-architecting how banks operate - giving them the unified foundations they need to compete in an AI-native future.

This isn't a typical Chief of Staff role. It's a high-trust operating position for someone who thrives at the intersection of product, technology, and commercial execution. You'll work directly with our CEO and senior leadership team to make sure our platform evolution translates into real outcomes - repeatable, sellable, deliverable.

What this role demands:

You're a strategic force multiplier, not an administrator. You can align our AI platform roadmap with our global revenue engine. You translate deep technical strategy into clear commercial outcomes. You bring operating discipline that drives decisions, not just discussions.

You've done this before in B2B SaaS. You speak both Product and Commercial fluently. You're ready to help define what banking becomes when AI transforms everything.

If that's you, let's talk.

The banks that move fastest on unified, AI-ready platforms will win the next decade. We want your help building that future with us.

Core Responsibilities

Company Operating System (Product ↔ Commercial):

• Design and run the CEO’s operating cadence across:
  • Product and Platform execution
  • Commercial execution
  • Services execution
• Ensure meetings result in decisions, owners, and measurable outcomes
• Structure complex decisions by framing trade-offs across product scope, delivery capacity, and commercial impact
• Ensure clarity on what truly matters - and what should not consume executive attention
• Track progress on the key initiatives that define Backbase’s transformation

Product  & Platform Execution:

• Work closely with CTO and Product Leadership to:
  • Ensure roadmaps are outcome-driven, not feature-driven
  • Translate strategy into clear product priorities and sequencing
  • Surface execution risks early (dependencies, ambiguity, delivery capacity)
• Help institutionalize modern delivery models (e.g. Agentic SDLC, MissionOps) by ensuring:
  • Clear intent and domain contracts
  • Tight feedback loops between build, deploy, and learn
• Act as an execution integrator - connecting strategy, product decisions, and delivery reality
• Ensure that what is built can be understood, sold, delivered, and adopted by the field
• Partner with Product and Commercial leadership to:
  • Shape packaging, pricing, and commercial boundaries
  • Define clear value propositions tied to business outcomes
  • Avoid “roadmap drift” that undermines commercial focus
• Translate field feedback into actionable product and packaging adjustments

Commercial & Service Execution (Field Effectiveness):

• Work closely with Sales, Marketing, and Expert Services leadership to:
  • Improve pipeline development 
  • Align marketing narratives with actual product and delivery maturity
  • Ensure services are sold and delivered in ways that accelerate platform adoption
• Partner with Services and Product leadership to evolve Expert Services toward:
  • IP-scaled, MissionOps-driven delivery
  • Clear scoping, pricing, and renewal mechanics
• Ensure delivery choices reinforce:
  • Product adoption
  • Customer outcomes
  • Sustainable margin expansion

Ideal Background & Experience

Must-have:

• 10 to 15+ years experience in B2B SaaS, preferably with exposure to AI, platforms, or data-intensive software
• Strong understanding of product development and software delivery, including modern platform architectures
• Proven experience working closely with Sales, Marketing, and Services organizations
• Prior roles near C-level, such as:
• Chief of Staff
• Head of Strategy
• Senior Product or Platform leader
• GM or commercial leader with product accountability
• Located in Amsterdam (highly preferred) or another major European city

Highly valued:

• Experience in platform transitions, category creation, or operating-model shifts
• Exposure to enterprise, regulated industries
• Track record of turning complex product strategy into commercially successful offerings

Personal Attributes & Gravitas:

• Bilingual in product and commercial language
• Technically fluent - able to engage deeply without getting lost in detail
• Commercially grounded - understands how buying, selling, and delivery really work
• Direct and trusted - willing to challenge the CEO and ELT constructively
• Structured, pragmatic, outcome-driven
• Low-ego, high-leverage

Success in the First 12 Months Looks Like:

• Product roadmaps, GTM motions, and services delivery are tightly aligned
• Field teams can clearly explain - and successfully sell - what Backbase builds
• Product teams receive fast, high-quality feedback from real customer interactions