Senior Platform Architect
Director of Product Development
Toronto – Hybrid work environment (3 days in office and 2 days remote.)
Full-Time, 6-month contract
About Raising The Village
Raising The Village (RTV) is an international development organization working to end ultra‑poverty in last‑mile rural communities across sub‑Saharan Africa. Our 24‑month universal graduation programs combine targeted material support with agency‑building interventions to help households move durably out of ultra‑poverty.
About the Venn Platform
RTV is investing in the next generation of Venn, an integrated platform for program delivery, monitoring, evaluation, and learning.
What sets Venn apart is its unique ability to unify two critical domains:
- Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL): The measurement frameworks, indicators, instruments, and learning loops that drive continuous program improvement.
- Systems: The applications, data infrastructure, and data science capabilities that power and operationalize those frameworks.
Getting this platform right has direct consequences for program delivery at scale across multiple countries.
Position Overview
RTV is seeking a Senior Platform Architect to define, validate, and govern the end-to-end architecture for the next generation of Venn. This is a focused, time-bound engagement. The mandate is clear: produce a validated, implementation-ready architecture and transfer ownership to RTV's in-house engineering and product teams.
You will serve as the technical authority across all platform components: data, services, APIs, orchestration, security, and cloud infrastructure. You will work directly with engineering, data, MEL, and product teams to translate business and program needs into a future-proof architecture that supports multi-country operations, multi-tenant data models, and an expanding MEL ecosystem.
This role defines the architectural foundation for RTV's next decade of scale. By the close of the engagement, RTV's engineering and product teams will be equipped with a clear architectural roadmap, validated design decisions, and a sequenced implementation plan. The architecture will be thoroughly documented, critical assumptions will have been tested, and the rationale behind major decisions will be well understood across the organization. This will enable RTV to confidently implement, maintain, and evolve the platform as organizational needs grow and change.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the target architecture for Venn end-to-end: applications, data, services, APIs, cloud infrastructure, security, and integration layers.
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Establish architectural principles, standards, and a decision-making framework (including an ADR repository) for engineering and data teams.
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Design the data architecture: data warehouse modernization, data models, lineage, metadata frameworks, and automated cleaning workflows.
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Architect modular, reusable platform services and API standards that support multi-country and multi-tenant requirements, including offline and low-connectivity constraints in rural contexts.
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Design cloud-native infrastructure across distributed, scalable, multi-environment workloads, with governance, resilience, and security built in from the start.
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Define the security architecture: identity, access control, encryption, and compliance.
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Translate architecture into sequenced implementation plans in partnership with engineering, MEL, and product teams.
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Lead structured knowledge transfer to ensure long-term sustainability after the engagement closes.
Key Deliverables
During the engagement, the Platform Architect will produce:
- A validated and implementation-ready end‑to‑end target architecture blueprint across applications, data, services, APIs, cloud, security, integration, and MEL.
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Architecture principles, standards, and an ADR (Architecture Decision Record) repository.
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Detailed component‑level designs for all major platform elements.
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A cloud and security architecture package, including environment strategy and identity/access model.
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One to two reference prototypes validating critical architectural assumptions.
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An implementation sequencing roadmap and dependency map for engineering teams.
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A version‑controlled architecture documentation package.
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Structured knowledge‑transfer sessions, including workshops and handover documentation.
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years of progressive experience in platform, cloud, solution, or enterprise architecture roles, including ownership of large scale, business critical systems
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Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline. Equivalent combination of education and extensive architecture experience will also be considered.
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Deep expertise in cloud-native architecture (Azure, AWS, or GCP)
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Strong background in data architecture, including data modeling, metadata frameworks, and modern Lakehouse environments
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Demonstrated experience with multi-tenant or multi-environment architectures
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Proven ability to design modular platform services, APIs, and integration patterns
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Strong understanding of security architecture, IAM, and compliance
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Familiarity with mobile data collection tools used in low-connectivity or field contexts
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Track record of knowledge transfer to in-house engineering teams
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with metadata‑driven design, canonical data models, or semantic layers.
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Cloud architecture certifications (AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, or equivalent).
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Experience in international development, social impact, or NGO environments.
