Software Architect for Latin America and the Caribbean

Job Overview

We are looking for a highly motivated Technical Architect to join our team and support country representatives in Latin America and the Caribbean in designing the right open technology architecture for DPI.

The ideal candidate should have excellent communication and people skills, hands-on experience in architecting transactional & information sharing systems, and deep design thinking to build reusable, highly secure, scalable and privacy-protecting digital infrastructure using open specifications/standards.

Some of the DPI blocks include data-sharing, identity, trust infrastructure and payment systems. To learn more about design thinking and implementation approach visit https://docs.cdpi.dev/

Conditions

• Part-time or full-time.
• Remote, with occasional travel required as per project demands.

Key Responsibilities

• Advising country policymakers and technical teams in the architecture design and specifications/integrations needed for projects such as Digitally Verifiable Credentials, Interoperable Payment Systems or Digital Identity authentication/eKYC/Single sign on.
• Technical support such as concept notes, high level integrated solution architecture/design docs, and open API specifications.
• Supporting pilot implementations.
• Travelling to different countries as required.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience working in technical architecture/design, delivered large-scale transactional processing systems/platforms, demonstrated user-centric product/design thinking, engineering best practices, and comfortable working across technologies.
• Experience working with projects impacting general public at large
• Experience working with open source or DPG solutions.
• Hands-on demonstrable skills to showcase understanding of various categories of DPG solutions that will enable providing technical advisory/help to country teams. E.g install/configure, understand API & other integration options between solutions, understand/explain possible solution options under various scenarios, etc., aligned with general DPI design thinking and implementation best practices.
• Excellent communication skills: verbal, and written (concise briefs and longer blogs/explainer articles).
• Resourcefulness and strong problem-solving skills.
• People skills - We’d like you to have a nose for identifying country champions and technical counterparts who can take work forward, and answer unsaid questions/concerns country representatives may bring up.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Context and curiosity around digital public infrastructure. An understanding of what DPI looks like in practice in different contexts,
• Bachelor's degree in a technical field with relevant experience as described above!
• Fluent in English and Spanish.
• Ideal candidates would be based in the Caribbean or Central America. We particularly encourage female applicants and those from diverse backgrounds. We also encourage candidates from the rest of Latin America to apply.

Description of the role

If you’re passionate about using technology to drive positive social impact globally, we encourage you to apply.

The Technical Architect will be responsible for building and maintaining relationships with country representatives and government officials in various countries, either directly or through our network of development partners. They will understand the needs and priorities of different countries to co-create a customized architecture that can be adopted at scale. They will also work closely with country representatives to design simple, feasible changes based on the current political and technological context of countries. This may involve providing technical assistance through - prototyping solution prototypes using FIGMA, Design APIs, Define best practices in design, technical reviews, co-creating strategy papers etc., on DPI. It may also include working with policy partners such as the World Bank or IDB who support countries with a policy framework and funding, and curating learning sessions explaining DPI for countries.

Digital Public Infrastructure is a topic fast gaining prevalence in the international community for its ability to drive outsized outcomes. The Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI) is a non-profit that helps countries design and build technology architecture based on shared building blocks such as eKYC, payments (P2P, P2M, G2P, and B2B), consented data sharing, and sector-specific rails across health, access to credit, agriculture, education, employment, and climate response to empower individuals. The Centre is driven by a builder mindset in the space of DPI, grounded in the belief that accelerating development at scale is possible when we can understand and leverage technology for inclusion and growth.

Given the early stage of development of CDPI, candidates should be resourceful, comfortable working with ambiguity, and ready to roll up their sleeves with a ‘do what it takes’ mindset in start-up mode to drive impact in the countries we work with - with some impatience. The role requires individuals to excel at imagining new possibilities while helping unlock incremental value using existing infrastructure to get to the final ideal Digital Economy/Society creating a positive impact on every person in the country. Our focus regions are Asia, Africa, and Central/South America. Existing networks across governments in focus regions and/or experience in development projects in focus regions are highly valued.

About CDPI

The Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI) is an agile, scale-driven non-profit that helps countries design and build technology architecture. We cover everything encompassed by DPI, including identity eKYC, real time payments (P2P, P2M, G2P, and B2B), consented data sharing & open banking, generation of verifiable credentials, AI adoption architectures, and sector specific rails across health, financial services, agriculture, education, energy transition, eCommerce, justice, and employment.

Philosophy: The Centre is driven by a builder mindset in the space of DPI, grounded in the belief that accelerating countries’ progress is possible when we leverage public tech rails for inclusion and growth. As a team, CDPI focuses on 3 major pillars of activity:

Country Engagement (bilateral and multilateral);

Creation of Industry-First Technical Blueprints & Resources to architect next-generation DPI; and

Shaping the Builder/Advisory Ecosystem of public/private partners to drive international scale up faster than we could do alone ourselves.

Team: Our Co-Chairs are Dr. Pramod Varma, Chief Architect of India Stack, and Prof S. Rajagopalan, the force who drove MOSIP open source issuance of 100 Million global IDs across 10+ countries. Our CXOs Kamya Chandra and Vijay Vujjini have been shaping key national and international DPI across Aadhaar, GSTN, Digilocker, Account Aggregator, NDHM, and beyond for over a decade. Our small mission-oriented SWAT team is diverse by design to cater to global audiences and spread across 4 continents, 5 countries (including India, Kenya, Ghana, Argentina, and Spain) and fluent in 8 languages.

Funding & Structure: The Centre is philanthropically funded by CoDevelop Foundation (who in turn are funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation; etc.). We are housed at an academic university – IIIT-B in India - to provide freedom to engage with any public or private stakeholder without the constraints of revenue maximization.