N8N Lead/Architect Job San Diego area,California USA,IT/Tech

N8N Lead/Architect

We're looking for a hands-on n8n expert with 3–4 years of core experience in designing, solutioning, building, deploying, and maintaining production-grade workflows using n8n. Should have extensive knowledge of automation of cross-system processes, integrate APIs and SaaS platforms, create custom nodes, and establish observability and governance for scalable, secure automations. You'll collaborate with product owners, SMEs, and platform teams to deliver business outcomes with high reliability and low operational overhead.

Responsibilities

Design, Solution & Build Workflows:
Develop modular, reusable n8n workflows to automate business processes (event-driven and scheduled).

Lead 2-3 n8n developers including troubleshooting

Integration Engineering:
Connect to REST/GraphQL APIs, webhooks, OAuth2/JWT auth, and common SaaS apps (e.g., Microsoft 365, Slack, Jira, Service Now, Salesforce, Hub Spot).

Custom n8n Nodes:
Design, Build and maintain custom nodes (Type Script/JavaScript) when native nodes don't meet requirements.

Data Handling:
Transform, enrich, and validate data (JSON, XML, CSV); implement schema validation and error handling.

Deployment & CI/CD:
Package and deploy n8n via Docker, configure environment variables/secrets, and integrate with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Git Hub Actions, Azure Dev Ops, Git Lab CI).

Security & Compliance:
Enforce least privilege, secrets management (e.g., Vault, n8n credentials), input sanitization, PII handling, and audit logging.

Monitoring & Observability:
Configure health checks, log aggregation (e.g., ELK, Datadog), and metrics (throughput, latency, failure rates).

Documentation & Enablement:
Produce workflow diagrams, runbooks, and versioned documentation; conduct knowledge transfer to ops and business users.

Stakeholder

Collaboration:

Work with business owners to refine requirements; deliver PoCs and then product ionize with SLAs.

Governance:
Adhere to automation standards, naming conventions, version control, and change-management procedures.

Must-Have Skills

Core n8n Expertise 8–10 Years

Experience with 3-4 years in n8n:

Design and Building complex, multi-branch workflows and sub-workflows
Webhooks, triggers, and event-driven automations
n8n credentials, variables, binary data, and data passing
Error handling, try/catch patterns, and workflow-level fallbacks

Programming:
Strong JavaScript/Type Script for functions, expressions, and custom nodes.

Enhance workflows with AI agents by leveraging LLMs for intelligent task automation.

Familiarity with SQL/No

SQL databases.

API Integration: REST/GraphQL, pagination, rate-limiting, authentication (OAuth2, API keys, JWT), and API contract testing.

Dev Ops:
Docker-based deployments, environment promotion (dev/test/prod), CI/CD, version control (Git), and configuration-as-code.

Data & Messaging: JSON manipulation, queues/pub-sub (e.g., RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS), and webhook architectures.

Security:
Secrets management, token lifecycle, signature validation (HMAC), and secure-by-design patterns.

Testing & Quality:
Unit tests for custom nodes, workflow test harnesses, and regression testing approach.

Nice-to-Have Skills

Experience with Microsoft 365/Teams/SharePoint, Service Now, Salesforce, Jira/Confluence integrations.

Knowledge of RPA (e.g., Power Automate Desktop, UiPath) and when to use n8n vs RPA vs iPaaS.

SSO/Identity:
Azure AD, SAML, SCIM; enterprise networking basics (proxies, firewalls).

N8N Lead​/Architect

N8N Lead/Architect