Solution Architect - Observability

About Blackhawk Network: Today, through BHN’s single global platform, businesses of all kinds can tap into the world’s largest network of branded payment solutions. BHN helps businesses grow revenue, increase loyalty, motivate and reward their teams, disburse funds, and engage consumers. Branded payment solutions include the issuance and distribution of gift cards, egifts, corporate payouts and rewards, along with the technology to deliver these products in seamless, integrated ways. BHN’s network spans the globe with more than 400,000 consumer touchpoints.

Hybrid flexibility: At Blackhawk Network, you’ll enjoy the best of both worlds—focused remote work plus in-person collaboration on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, our regular in-office days at our Pleasanton headquarters. This rhythm gives you the tools, connection, and autonomy you need to make a real impact.

About the role

Blackhawk Network is seeking an exceptional Solution Architect- Observability to design and scale our enterprise observability capabilities. This role combines deep technical expertise in modern observability platforms with a strong architectural mindset, enabling you to define how observability is implemented across our systems and engineering practices. You will shape the architecture, standards, and design patterns that guide how systems are instrumented and monitored, influencing how hundreds of engineers approach system reliability and performance through thoughtful architecture and reusable solutions.

Responsibilities

• Observability Architecture and Strategy
  • Define and drive the overall observability architecture vision aligned with business and platform goals
  • Design end-to-end observability solutions across microservices, distributed systems, and AWS cloud environments
  • Architect scalable telemetry pipelines for metrics, logs, traces, and events using tools such as New Relic, Splunk, Coralogix, and CloudWatch
  • Establish reference architectures, design patterns, and standards to ensure consistent implementation across teams
  • Ensure observability solutions are scalable, cost-efficient, and compliant with security and regulatory requirements
  • Integrate observability into platform services, internal developer platforms, and CI/CD pipelines
• Solution Design and Engineering Enablement
  • Partner with engineering, product, and SRE teams to design observability solutions aligned with application and domain needs
  • Act as a solution architect and consultant, guiding teams on instrumentation strategies and monitoring design
  • Translate business and operational requirements into scalable observability architectures
  • Create reusable architecture artifacts, documentation, and implementation blueprints
  • Lead design reviews and provide hands-on guidance for complex observability challenges
  • Enable teams with self-service observability capabilities while maintaining governance and standards
• Technical Leadership and Governance
  • Define and enforce observability standards, governance models, and best practices across the organization
  • Drive improvements in mean time to detection and mean time to resolution through architectural improvements
  • Evaluate emerging tools and technologies to evolve observability capabilities
  • Collaborate across platform, SRE, and DevOps teams to embed observability into the software development lifecycle
  • Mentor engineers and influence system design decisions across multiple teams and domains

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 6+ years of experience in platform engineering, SRE, DevOps, or solution architecture roles
• Proven experience designing and implementing large-scale observability architectures in production environments
• Expertise with modern observability platforms such as New Relic, Splunk, Datadog, or Coralogix
• Strong understanding of distributed systems and cloud-native architectures, preferably in AWS
• Hands-on experience with observability pipelines and frameworks such as OpenTelemetry, Fluentd, Vector, or Logstash
• Experience integrating observability into CI/CD pipelines and developer workflows
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence and guide technical and non-technical stakeholders

Skills

• Deep understanding of observability pillars: metrics, logs, traces, and events
• Experience designing instrumentation strategies using APM agents and OpenTelemetry
• Familiarity with query languages such as PromQL, SPL, NRQL, or LogQL
• Expertise in building dashboards and visualization strategies for operational insights

Benefits

• 401k with employer match
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 12 paid holidays in 2026
• 1 hour of sick pay accrual for every 30 hours worked
• Parental leave
• Life insurance and disability insurance
• Accident and illness insurance
• Health and dependent care flexible spending accounts
• Wellness benefits
• Flexible time off for all full-time employees

Pay

Salary Range for California Residents Only: $138,140.00 to $186,500.00. Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, and certifications.

Schedule

Hybrid: Focused remote work plus in-person collaboration on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at our Pleasanton headquarters.