Software Architect

JSI invites you to join our team as a Software Architect , where you'll play a critical role in advancing broadband and telecommunications initiatives that expand connectivity and drive digital inclusion - while advancing your career within a mission-driven, growth-focused organization. About the Company: JSI is a leading full-service consulting firm specializing in broadband solutions. For over 60 years, we have provided independent communications service providers with expert financial, engineering, management, operational, regulatory, and strategic guidance. Our extensive industry knowledge and proven track record of success have empowered clients to achieve sustainable growth and profitability. With clients nationwide and a powerful presence in markets across the United States, JSI empowers rural and regional broadband providers to expand, evolve, and excel in a rapidly shifting digital world. Position Overview: JSI is seeking a hands-on Software Architect to help build the technology foundation for our next generation of AI-enabled products, internal tools, and SaaS solutions. This role sits within the CTO organization and plays a central part in how JSI takes new ideas from concept through prototype and MVP, validates them, and, when successful, advances them into production and commercial products. This is not a traditional architecture-only position. We're looking for someone who can define how applications should be built and actively develop them. The Software Architect will establish the frameworks, standards, reusable components, and AI-assisted development practices that let JSI build software rapidly while maintaining professional standards for architecture, security, testing, scalability, and maintainability. The ideal candidate is a strong full-stack software developer and architect with experience across front-end, back-end, databases, APIs, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, security, and AI application development. Responsibilities Design and develop full-stack applications, AI-enabled tools, SaaS products, APIs, and supporting services. Establish JSI's software architecture and development framework for rapidly moving ideas from prototype to MVP to production. Serve as a hands-on architect, writing production code while providing technical direction and architectural leadership. Develop reusable application templates, components, libraries, APIs, AI services, and development tools that accelerate future product development. Establish standards and best practices for AI-assisted software development using modern AI coding tools and agents. Build and maintain development guardrails that allow AI-generated code to be used safely and effectively in production applications. Establish architecture, coding, testing, documentation, code-review, security, and deployment standards. Develop and maintain source-control standards, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, dependency management, and release processes. Architect and develop AI applications using LLMs, RAG, agents, MCP/tool integration, vector search, and external APIs where appropriate. Design secure application architectures including authentication, authorization, secrets management, data protection, API security, and customer data isolation. Establish patterns for scalable SaaS applications, including multi-tenant architecture and integration with enterprise systems. Architect solutions that incorporate geospatial/GIS systems where relevant to JSI's telecom and broadband engineering work. Evaluate new AI models, development tools, frameworks, cloud services, and technologies for use within JSI. Review internally and externally developed software for architecture, security, maintainability, performance, and production readiness. Work closely with the CTO, product owners, subject-matter experts, and business leaders to translate business problems and ideas into working software. Provide technical leadership and architectural oversight to internal developers and outside technology and development partners. What Success Looks Like: Success in this role means JSI can move from an idea to a working MVP quickly without sacrificing the fundamentals required to eventually put that application into production. The Software Architect will help create a repeatable development environment where JSI's subject-matter expertise can be translated into software, AI-enabled tools, and commercial products. Over time, the frameworks and tools developed by this role should make JSI increasingly capable of developing new applications faster, more securely, and with less development effort. This role will be a key technical leader within the CTO organization and will help establish how JSI builds software and AI-enabled products going forward. Qualifications Required: Demonstrated full-stack software development experience, with the ability to architect and develop production applications across front-end, back-end, database, API, cloud, security, and deployment layers. Strong hands-on software development skills, including significant experience with Python and modern web application technologies. Experience with modern front-end frameworks and technologies such as React, Next.js, JavaScript, and/or TypeScript. Experience designing and developing APIs, backend services, and integrations. Strong experience with relational databases and modern application data architectures. Experience designing and deploying applications in Azure, AWS, or comparable cloud environments. Working knowledge of Git/GitHub, CI/CD, automated testing, containers, deployment, monitoring, and modern DevOps practices. Strong understanding of application security, authentication, authorization, API security, secrets management, and secure software-development practices. Experience designing scalable, reliable, maintainable production software. Ability to make sound architectural decisions while still moving quickly enough to support rapid MVP development. Preferred: Experience building SaaS or other commercial software products. Experience taking applications from prototype or MVP through production deployment and ongoing support. Experience establishing software-development frameworks, standards, or reusable application architectures. Experience working in an innovation, product-development, startup, or rapid-development environment. Experience integrating AI capabilities into existing enterprise applications and workflows. Experience providing technical leadership to internal development teams and external development partners. Familiarity with telecommunications, broadband, engineering, GIS, consulting, or other technology-enabled professional services is a plus. AI Development Experience: Candidates should have practical experience developing software using modern generative AI technologies, including experience with several of the following: LLM APIs and integration Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) AI agents and tool calling Embeddings and vector databases Model Context Protocol (MCP) Prompt and context engineering AI application evaluation and testing AI security and data protection AI-assisted software development and coding agents Experience using AI coding tools to accelerate professional software development while maintaining appropriate architecture, security, testing, documentation, and code-review standards is strongly preferred. Benefits & Compensation Competitive salary + performance-based bonuses. Comprehensive benefits package (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)). Generous PTO and wellness opportunities. Ongoing professional development and educational opportunities.