Tech Lead / Software Architect

About 10x Labs

We wrap our arms around businesses and help them scale. We work with enterprises and fast-growing companies to implement AI strategy, workflow automation, and build custom software. Not as a vendor, but as a genuine partner with skin in the game.

We move at a pace most businesses have never experienced, and we hold ourselves to a standard most agencies can't match. We don't pitch solutions. We sit with our clients, understand where they're stuck, and build the systems that get them unstuck. Quickly and properly.

The work is the kind engineers actually want: agent-first platforms running national field operations at around 90% automation, electric vehicle operating systems for everything from cars to trucks and buses, AI making real operational decisions in regulated industries, and rescues of platforms other teams couldn't deliver. And for the right businesses we go further. We unlock them: we build new products we come up with together, and we bring in capital through equity or debt to fund the growth those initiatives create.

Our founders have built energy flex markets, led transactions of billion-dollar businesses, and built software agencies that consistently deliver engineers in the top 3% globally. That pedigree shapes how we think, how we work, and what we expect from the people who join us.

The role

Let's be honest about most architect roles: governance and slideware. You review other people's designs, you sit in steering committees, and nothing you decide touches production for a year. That's not this.

You'll be the technical anchor of our product trios. Working alongside Product Managers and subject matter experts, you'll get deep into what the customer needs and what actually matters to them, then find the best technical path to deliver it. You're the custodian of our technical vision: you turn business requirements into architecture that's efficient, scalable and modern, you validate your assumptions early, and you lead the team that builds it.

This is hands-on. You stay close to the code while owning the bigger picture. And it's AI-powered from every angle: AI-powered solutions are what we deliver, AI-powered discovery and architecture are how we design them, and AI-powered engineering is how we build them. Expect serious learning, R&D and experimentation, applied to real products solving real problems for real businesses, then measured, analysed and improved.

What you will do

• Own architecture and technical discovery: understand the business problem, explore the solution space, build high-level assumptions and validate them before development begins
• Work as an integrated member of a product trio with Product Managers and SMEs, shaping the roadmap around both business value and engineering constraints
• Lead technical discussions in client workshops and discovery sessions, translating complex concepts for non-technical stakeholders and managing scope expectations
• Turn architecture into a clear vision, timeline and set of high-level jobs for the development team, and defend your solutions with an open mind
• Design and implement scalable systems from first principles, writing production-quality code for critical features and complex integrations
• Champion engineering quality: thorough reviews, clear documentation, effective use of AI-assisted development tools, and predictable high-quality delivery

What you bring — Required

• Extensive experience architecting and building production systems. You know the traditional way deeply, including where it breaks down
• A track record of leading development teams: setting technical direction, breaking down work, and getting delivery moving
• Hands-on depth in a modern stack. You write production code, not just diagrams
• Client-facing confidence: running workshops, extracting requirements, having the hard conversations about trade-offs
• Genuine excitement to translate your experience into new, AI-driven ways of working

Strongly preferred

• Experience architecting AI-powered or agentic systems for production use
• Cloud-native depth: Kubernetes, microservices, event-driven architecture, high-volume data
• Experience in consultancy, agency or multi-client delivery environments
• Flex market and energy systems experience is always a big bonus

Nice to have

• Exposure to regulated or operationally critical domains (energy, healthcare, financial services)
• Experience with platform rescues or modernisations of legacy critical-path systems

Why this role

The software industry is splitting in two: teams using AI to genuinely ship faster, and teams talking about it. We're the first kind, and we're selective about who joins. What's on offer is the technical helm of a company building AI-first systems that run real operations, the autonomy to set the standard, seniority around you to sharpen it, and the pace to see your decisions hit production in weeks, not quarters. You'll report directly to the CTO and work closely with the Head of Product, the COO, and the broader engineering and design team. If you can't remember the last time work stretched you, this will fix that.

What you get

• A competitive package that reflects the calibre we hire at
• Access to every AI tool on the market (as long as it has passed security) with team support and budget to get you set up and moving fast
• Hard, interesting problems: real AI in production, real scale, real consequences. Not demos and decks
• Direct access to some of the most experienced operators in the country
• A team that will stretch you, back you, and make you better

The interview process

Our process is straightforward and moves fast: a short video interview (we know engineers hate this — the only people who don't hate it are in sales — but it's an important and necessary step, and if you can't push outside your comfort zone, you're not going to fit in here), then a technical deep-dive on real problems, not puzzles, then a final conversation with the founders. We move quickly for the right person.