Job Description

Location: Singapore, Singapore
Thales is a global technology leader trusted by governments, institutions, and enterprises to tackle their most demanding challenges. From quantum applications and artificial intelligence to cybersecurity and 6G innovation, our solutions empower critical decisions rooted in human intelligence. Operating at the forefront of aerospace and space, cybersecurity and digital identity, we're driven by a mission to build a future we can all trust.
In Singapore, Thales has been a trusted partner since 1973, originally focused on aerospace activities in the Asia-Pacific region. With 2,000 employees across three local sites, we deliver cutting-edge solutions across aerospace (including air traffic management), defence and security, and digital identity and cybersecurity sectors. Together, we're shaping the future by enabling customers to make pivotal decisions that safeguard communities and power progress.
Whom We Are Looking For
We are looking for an experienced Software Architect with deep expertise in distributed systems design to lead the architecture of large-scale, event-driven platforms. This role focuses on building resilient, high-throughput, and low-latency systems leveraging Apache Kafka, Apache Camel, and Kubernetes. The ideal candidate will combine strong technical leadership with hands-on knowledge of cloud-native and integration technologies, enabling teams to deliver mission-critical capabilities at scale.
Responsibilities:
Architecture & Design

• Define the end-to-end architecture of distributed systems that combine Kafka (asynchronous event streaming) with REST-based SOA (synchronous service communication).
• Establish service interaction models, including API-first design, event-driven patterns, and microservices boundaries
• Design fault-tolerant, elastic, and observable architectures with strong SLAs/SLOs SLOs (SLA is 99.9995%) for throughput and latency.
• Ensure designs align with microservices, domain-driven design (DDD), and event-sourcing/CQRS principles.
• Drive API-first design and interoperability across heterogeneous systems.

Platform & Infrastructure

• Deploy and manage Kafka clusters for high-volume, high-throughput messaging pipelines.
• Architect REST-based APIs with OpenAPI/Swagger standards for discoverability and interoperability.
• Implement service orchestration and composition patterns to connect REST services with Kafka streams.
• Ensure cloud-native deployment of services on Kubernetes, leveraging Helm, Operators, and GitOps pipelines (ArgoCD, Flux).
• Define SLOs, RPOs to measure the levels of resiliency and robustness in the architecture.

Scalability, Resilience & Observability

• Define scaling strategies for both Kafka and REST-based services to meet throughput and latency SLAs.
• Implement resilient service-to-service communication (circuit breakers, retries, idempotency, API gateways).
• Integrate observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry) to monitor both events and REST APIs.
• Standardize error handling, schema evolution, and API versioning practices.
• Architect systems for self-healing, auto-scaling, and disaster recovery across distributed environments.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Partner with engineering leads, product owners, and business stakeholders to translate business needs into scalable architectures.
• Provide technical leadership to teams building event-driven microservices and REST APIs.
• Create and enforce reference architectures, golden paths, and best practices for distributed systems.
• Mentor engineers on distributed systems principles, event-driven design, and Kubernetes-native deployment patterns.

• Collaborate with InfoSec and Compliance teams to run regular security audits, risk assessments and data assessments.

• Work in an agile, cross-functional multinational team, actively engaging to support the success of the team.

Requirements:
Education

• Bachelors in Computer Science or Information Technology.
• Masters degree in Computer Science or Data Science.

Essential Skills/Experience

• 8+ years in software engineering/architecture, with 3+ years designing large-scale distributed systems.
• Strong understanding of CAP theorem, Leadership Election strategies (e.g., Quorum), Data replication strategies, Data Partition Strategies.
• Deep expertise in Apache Kafka (topics, partitions, replication, Connect, Streams, ksqlDB).
• Strong knowledge of REST-based service-oriented architectures, including API-first design, documentation, and governance
• Hands-on experience deploying and operating workloads on Kubernetes (Helm, Operators, CRDs).
• Proficiency in Java/Kotlin (preferred), with experience in REST API frameworks (e.g., Spring Boot).
• Strong foundation in system design, distributed consensus, and CAP theorem trade-offs.

Desirable Skills/Experience
If you have the following desirable skills and relevant experiences, it would be an added advantage!

• Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd).
• Familiarity with data lake and warehouse integration (Iceberg, BigQuery).
• Certifications: CKA/CKAD, Confluent Certified Kafka Architect/Developer.
• Background in regulated industries (aviation, fintech, govtech) with compliance-aware designs.

Essential / Desirable Traits

• Possess learning agility, flexibility and pro-activity
• Comfortable with agile teamwork and user engagement

At Thales, we're committed to fostering a workplace where respect, trust, collaboration, and passion drive everything we do. Here, you'll feel empowered to bring your best self, thrive in a supportive culture, and love the work you do. Join us, and be part of a team reimagining technology to create solutions that truly make a difference - for a safer, greener, and more inclusive world.

Skills Required