Description
Summary Overview: We are a payment technology company looking for a senior-level FinTech Solutions Architect & Consultant to serve as our technical advisor and lead developer. Our core business is payment processing. To start, our initial task will be to evaluate our partner’s existing systems and advise us on the absolute best approach to embed our payment processing capabilities into their platform. We'll also be leaning on you for other general consultancy inquiries. This engagement will begin as a Paid Consulting & Discovery Phase. Before writing any code, we want your expert analysis on whether we should design a fully custom integration or execute a "mashup" of existing, white-labeled fintech infrastructure and middleware to bridge the systems efficiently. Phase 1: Consulting & Discovery (Your Immediate Task) We need you to evaluate our partner's platform (a custom-built membership CRM and database that handles organization rosters, registries, and contact records) and consult on the best path forward. Your deliverable for this phase will be an architectural recommendation report outlining: The Build vs. Buy/Mashup Analysis: Can we leverage existing third-party embedded finance frameworks, iPaaS/middleware, or API connectors to "stitch" the platforms together quickly? Or does this require a fully custom-designed API integration? The Recommended Architecture: A high-level technical map of the data flow, security boundaries, and payment routing. Cost & Timeline Estimates: An honest breakdown of the development effort for the recommended path. The Complexities You Will Help Us Solve: To illustrate the type of multi-tiered relationship we are looking to build, think of how platforms in youth sports, club management, or K-12 tuition operate. We are looking to support a broad hierarchy similar to: Level 1 (The Enterprise/League): The main organizing bodies that sets the rules (represented by our partner's master database). Level 2 (The Local Club/Teams): The local entity where funds are settled (the merchant account). Level 3 (The End-User/Player): The rostered member who incurs the charge (receives the invoice/schedule in the CRM). Level 4 (The Payor/Parent): The external guarantor who actually links their credit card or bank account and funds the payment. Your Goal: Advise us on how to cleanly map these relationships so that when a member is billed, the system can route the payment authorization to the external payer, process the transaction, and settle the funds into the correct local unit’s merchant account. Required Skills & Experience: Fintech & Payments Domain Expertise: Deep understanding of payment processors, gateways, card/ACH rails, and Payfac architectures. Architectural Advisory: Proven experience consulting on "Build vs. Buy" decisions, microservices, and system orchestration. Integration Mastery: Experience mashing up disparate systems, legacy databases, or custom CRMs using APIs and webhooks. Security & Compliance: Strong knowledge of PCI-DSS compliance, secure tokenization, and data vaulting. To Apply, Please Answer: How would you approach the "Discovery & Consulting" phase for a project like this? What key questions would you ask us and our SaaS partner first? In your past experience, when has a "mashup" of existing platforms/middleware made more sense than building a custom integration from scratch? Have you ever architected a payment system with a hierarchical account relationship (such as a League-Team-Player-Parent style dynamic)? Briefly describe the approach you took.