Intermediate Software Architect in at K2United LLC

K2United is an organization that houses two distinct, national, customer-facing brands tied together by a shared purpose: setting the standard for an extraordinary workplace. Through our brands, K2Share and CareerSafe, we provide advisory services in cyber risk management and online education for workforce readiness.

Our four core values define how we show up every day:

• Respect Others - We lead with respect, building trust and connection.
• Internally Driven - We are relentlessly compelled to accomplish our objectives.
• Collaborative Innovation - We create by listening, sharing, and working together.
• Client Success - We hold our client's mission as our own.

We believe in people who are accountable, curious, and motivated to make an impact that matters.

Our programs make a big impact - CareerSafe supports 2 million+ users per year, and K2Share delivers IT support on federal systems. You'll have the opportunity to make a difference in a mission-driven, small-business environment that values professional growth and work/life balance.

You're a hands-on technologist who enjoys solving complex problems and translating business needs into practical, scalable software solutions. You have enough development experience to understand what it takes to build and maintain software, and you're equally comfortable working with developers, designers, infrastructure teams, and business stakeholders. You like wearing multiple hats, digging into the code when needed, and using prototypes and proof-of-concepts to turn ambiguous ideas into sound technical direction. You're curious by nature and actively look for ways to keep learning, whether that's experimenting with AI, earning certifications, exploring new technologies, or simply finding better ways to solve problems.

You:

• Enjoy moving between architecture, development, and stakeholder collaboration.
• Communicate technical ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Take ownership of complex problems and work to keep teams unblocked.
• Care about building scalable systems and making thoughtful technology trade-offs.
• Are comfortable working in a small organization where an architect gets involved in both high-level decisions and hands-on implementation.
• Stay curious and look for opportunities to grow your skills and improve how software is built.

As an Intermediate Software Architect, you'll help shape the technical direction of CareerSafe's software products while staying close enough to implementation to understand how architectural decisions perform in practice. You'll work across Product Development to design scalable solutions, support developers when additional engineering capacity is needed, coordinate technical decisions across teams, and make sure architecture and system knowledge are documented well enough for others to work independently. This is a role for someone who wants to grow as an architect while remaining deeply connected to the engineering work.

In this role, you will:

• Design scalable, forward-looking software solutions for complex business and product needs, evaluating trade-offs and selecting technologies that support long-term growth.
• Use prototypes and proof-of-concepts to validate complex designs before significant development work begins.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and incorporate them thoughtfully when they can improve scalability, maintainability, or development effectiveness.
• Step into active development work when Product Development needs additional engineering capacity, contributing prototypes, proof-of-concepts, and production code while maintaining existing team standards.
• Partner with AppDev, QE, Product Development, and IOPS to clarify technical direction, surface dependencies early, resolve trade-offs, and keep cross-team work moving.
• Participate in refinement and technical discussions, helping teams understand acceptance criteria, technical scope, edge cases, and implementation considerations.
• Provide technical expertise during high-priority incidents, supporting triage and root-cause identification when needed.
• Create and maintain high-level architecture and technical documentation in Confluence and Miro so developers, designers, and other stakeholders can find accurate information without relying on architecture for every answer.
• Review pull requests, identify correctness and design concerns, mentor developers through thoughtful questions, and help strengthen engineering practices across the team.
• Maintain and evolve engineering standards and the code style guide as new patterns and better practices emerge.

You'll have the opportunity to grow from an intermediate architect toward a senior and eventually advisor-level role, with potential leadership opportunities as the architecture function grows.

• Hands-on software development experience, with a demonstrated ability to write and contribute to production-quality code.
• Strong backend development experience and a solid understanding of three-tier architecture and scalable system design.
• Professional experience with Python. Django experience is a plus.
• Experience designing and working with relational database schemas.
• Experience designing or integrating APIs and understanding how application components interact across a larger system.
• Experience translating business and product requirements into technical designs, prototypes, or proof-of-concepts.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across developers, designers, infrastructure teams, and business stakeholders.
• Experience creating both high-level architectural documentation and more detailed technical documentation.
• Familiarity with cloud architecture and cloud-based application design, with AWS experience preferred.
• Familiarity with infrastructure as code, with Terraform experience preferred.
• Familiarity with Vue or modern front-end development concepts is a plus.
• Experience working in environments with federal compliance considerations, including FedRAMP, is a plus.
• Willingness to travel approximately 10% and work a 9/80 schedule.

We're invested in the people who make our success possible. As a K2United employee, you'll enjoy a comprehensive set of benefits and opportunities that meet you where you are. These benefits include:

• 401(k) plan with employer matching contributions
• Low-cost, comprehensive medical benefits for employees and their families
• Flexibility for those needing time off for jury duty, voting, military leave, etc.
• Paid time off
• Wellness stipend program (includes fitness reimbursement program)
• Tuition stipend
• Casual dress work environment
• Technical training and certifications as required
• Any of our CareerSafe Online training courses for free to employees and their immediate family

Applicants must be willing to take a drug test and submit to a credit and background investigation as part of the selection process.

The U.S. government restricts access by Foreign Nationals to certain types of technology and technical data. Consequently, this posting is intended only for U.S. citizens.

K2United, LLC is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected Veteran status.

This job description is not an exhaustive list of job responsibilities. K2United management reserves the right to change or alter this job description at any time without notice.