Chief Architect

About Intermezzo Intermezzo is building the global payroll platform the market has been missing. Global payroll remains one of the last major enterprise workflows without a true platform. Most providers stitch together aggregators, country-specific solutions, and manual operational processes. We're taking a fundamentally different approach. Our approach is to treat payroll as a systems problem: build the platform first, then countries become specializations of a unified, explainable, API-first payroll engine. We combine deep compliance expertise, deterministic payroll computation, and AI-native workflows to create infrastructure that can power payroll globally. The Role We are looking for a Chief Architect to define the technical architecture and technology strategy. This role will report to and work closely with the CTO to provide technical leadership across our globally distributed engineering organization and help build the foundation of our global payroll platform. This is not just a technology role. This is a company-building role. The decisions you make will shape both our technology platform and our ability to scale globally.The right person will impact our global roadmap significantly. They will partner with our global team, make architectural decisions, work directly on design and code, and move fast in a startup environment. Experience designing systems that effectively incorporate AI technologies into products and engineering workflows is a must This is a hands-on leadership role. We expect the Chief Architect to spend significant time designing systems and contributing directly to implementation. What Youll Do Define the long-term technical architecture of the Intermezzo platform. Lead the design of deterministic payroll and compliance engines across multiple jurisdictions. Establish engineering standards for APIs, distributed systems, security, and scalability. Partner with engineering & product leads through architecture reviews, design discussions, and hands-on implementation. Evaluate and adopt AI technologies that improve developer productivity and product capabilities. Mentor senior engineers and help build a high-performance engineering culture. What Were Looking For Required Based in Bengaluru Strong experience shipping complex systems and working on leading edge technologies Deep hands-on engineering capability across coding, system design, and architecture Ability to operate both strategically and tactically Strong understanding of the AI landscape, and practical applications of AI in product and engineering workflows High ownership mindset with strong startup execution instincts Strong sense of ownership and urgency in a fast-moving startup environment Preferred Experience in payroll, HR tech, tax, compliance, fintech, or similarly regulated domains Experience building API-first platforms or developer infrastructure products Startup or founder experience We are agnostic to your experience in tech stacks, but expect you to have worked with many of them in your career. Compensation & Benefits Competitive compensation package Meaningful company stock options / equity participation Opportunity to help shape the company at an early stage with real ownership and influence High-impact role reporting directly to the CTO Why Join This is an opportunity to help build category-defining infrastructure in one of the most complex and important enterprise software markets. You wont be joining a mature machine - youll be helping build the machine.Youll work directly with experienced founders who have built payroll and global employment systems at scale, and youll have meaningful ownership over both product and company outcomes. If you want to solve hard problems, move fast, and build something foundational, wed like to talk. .