Principle Architect

Role overview

Principle Architect at Netcore Cloud

We're looking for a Principal Architect to own the technical direction of Unbxd's Search, Recommendations, and AI Engineering

Platform — the core system processing millions of API calls a day across a multi-tenant SaaS platform, under tight SLAs, for some of

the world's largest retailers.

This is a senior individual-contributor role, not a people-management position.

You'll be the deepest

technical authority in the room: setting architecture strategy, making hard distributed-systems tradeoffs, and being hands-on enough

to prototype, debug, and review code at the level of detail that actually moves the needle.

You'll also act as a technical advisor across adjacent areas of the platform — including the Merchandising Console and other

supporting systems — helping ensure architectural coherence across Unbxd's broader product surface, even though your primary

charter is search, recommendations, and the AI engineering platform.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the architecture of Unbxd's Search & Recommendations platform — a Solr-based system supporting millions
• of API calls/day at strict SLA targets for enterprise retail customers.
• Set the multi-year technical strategy for the AI Engineering Platform, including how vector search, embeddings, and
• LLM-based agentic components (AI Shopping Assistant, Autonomous Merchandising Agents) integrate with the core retrieval
• stack.
• Make and defend architectural decisions on scalability, fault tolerance, multi-tenancy, and cost-efficiency for a SaaS platform
• operating at retail scale (including peak-traffic events like flash sales and holiday spikes).
• Act as a technical advisor to adjacent teams (Merchandising Console, self-serve, delivery/CX platforms), ensuring their
• designs align with overall platform architecture, without owning their day-to-day delivery.
• Stay hands-on — write and review code, build proofs of concept for new architectural directions, and go deep on production
• issues when systemic root-causing is needed.
• Partner with engineering leadership, product management, and customer-facing teams to translate business and customer

Required qualifications

• 12+ years in software engineering, with 8+ years of demonstrable architecture-level ownership of large-scale,
• high-throughput distributed systems.
• Core Skills: Java, Go, Python; deep expertise in information retrieval systems (Solr/Lucene or equivalent); distributed systems
• fundamentals (consensus, sharding, replication, caching, queuing); production experience with vector search / embedding-based
• retrieval and its integration into traditional search stacks.
• (e.g., SLA commitments, billing model design, integration patterns for SIs/agencies) into sound technical
• architecture.
• Define technical standards, review architecture proposals across teams, and act as an escalation point for the hardest
• distributed-systems and reliability problems.
• Represent Unbxd's technical platform in customer-facing or partner-facing technical discussions where deep architectural
• credibility is required.
• Track and evaluate emerging technology (search, vector databases, agentic AI infra) and translate it into pragmatic
• recommendations for the platform roadmap.
• 8+ years architecting and operating large-scale distributed systems in production, ideally in search, recommendations, or a
• related high-QPS domain.
• Strong, current coding ability — this is an IC role and hands-on technical depth is non-negotiable, not a legacy credential.
• Proven experience with information retrieval systems (Solr, Elasticsearch, Lucene, or similar) at scale.
• Practical experience integrating vector search / embedding-based retrieval with traditional keyword search systems.
• Track record of operating systems under strict SLA/availability commitments in a multi-tenant SaaS environment.
• Experience influencing architecture across multiple teams/domains without formal reporting authority — strong technical
• persuasion and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Comfortable making build-vs-buy and cost-vs-performance tradeoffs at a platform level (e.g., billing model design, infra
• migration strategy).
• Prior exposure to agentic AI systems or LLM-based production features is a strong plus, given Unbxd's direction into Agentic AI.

Employment details

• Location: Bengaluru [India]

About the employer

• About Netcore Unbxd

Additional role details

• Principal Architect – Search, Recommendations & AI Platform
• Netcore Unbxd is an AI-powered product discovery platform recognized by Forrester and Gartner as the global leader in Commerce
• Search and Product Discovery, earning Leader status in Gartner's 2025 Magic Quadrant™ for the second consecutive year.
• We're
• trusted by billion-dollar retailers like Unilever, Waitrose, Express, Puma, Signet, and Advance Auto Parts to power conversions and
• revenue through best-in-class product discovery and personalization.
• We're at the forefront of Agentic AI in commerce — building AI
• Shopping Assistants and Autonomous Merchandising Agents that redefine how shoppers find what they want.
• Curious what it's like to work here?
• Check out Life at Netcore - Life at Netcore :
• Also Please have a look at our Founder's take on where we're headed : https://www.founderthesis.com/p/rajesh-jain-and-netcore-cloud-the