GraphQL Architect / Principal Engineer

Melbourne preferred - Sydney considered
$190,000 - $200,000 + Super

You’re not the sort of engineer who drops GraphQL on a CV because you once consumed an API from the frontend.

You’ve gone properly deep - schema design, performance, governance, scaling, and helping teams use it well.

If that sounds like you, this role gives you the chance to help shape a GraphQL Centre of Excellence in a craft-driven engineering environment working alongside a major ASX-listed business.

This is a role for someone who still cares about the craft. Someone who can go from architectural thinking to technical detail without losing credibility with either developers or stakeholders. Someone who knows that using GraphQL well is not just about standing up an endpoint - it is about patterns, guardrails, performance, and helping teams apply it properly.

What you’d be doing

You’d be brought in as a genuine GraphQL specialist.

Your job would be to help shape how the business uses GraphQL in a scalable, efficient, and sustainable way. That includes both the technical foundations and the practical uplift of the developers around you.

You’d be involved in:

• shaping GraphQL best practice, standards, and reusable patterns
• guiding schema design, resolver strategy, governance, and performance
• helping developers use GraphQL in a highly efficient and pragmatic way
• contributing to setup, configuration, and production-ready implementation
• supporting a broader Centre of Excellence model rather than just solving for a single delivery team
• advising on where GraphQL fits best across a wider engineering landscape
• helping create something well-engineered, not fashionable for the sake of it

What you’ll bring

You’ll likely bring a mix of the following:

• deep commercial experience with GraphQL in production environments
• deep software engineering capability, ideally from a Java-based background
• experience in complex, distributed or event-driven systems
• strong understanding of API design, system integration, and engineering trade-offs
• experience with AWS or Azure
• the ability to mentor and guide other engineers through good technical practice
• enough hands-on credibility to influence strong developers through substance, not job title

You’ll stand out if you’ve worked with

• GraphQL in Java environments
• event-driven architecture
• federation, schema governance, or resolver performance
• enterprise patterns and standards
• engineering teams where quality, efficiency, and craft still matter

Why this role is different

A lot of roles mention GraphQL.

Very few ask you to help define how GraphQL should be used properly in a meaningful enterprise environment.

This one does.

You’d have the chance to shape standards, influence capable developers, and build a Centre of Excellence that has real impact beyond one project or one team. You’d be doing it in an environment that values technical depth, respects engineering judgement, and wants someone who can bring both expertise and pragmatism.

This will suit you if

• you’ve gone genuinely deep on GraphQL
• you enjoy teaching strong engineers, not just coding beside them
• you care about efficiency, quality, and patterns that scale
• you’re comfortable moving between hands-on engineering and technical leadership
• you want your expertise to shape how a business works, not just what it ships this sprint

Location and package

• Melbourne preferred
• Sydney considered for the right person
• $190,000 - $200,000 + Super