Principal Engineer, Software Architecture (Microservices)

The Principal Engineer, Software Architecture, partners with key stakeholders across the organization in developing platform technical roadmap and strategies. This individual acts as a technical leader to guide the creation and lifecycle of software platform architecture.  Produces architectural block diagrams and high-level designs, delivers architectural design to development staff provides answers to customer inquiries concerning system software and applications, and interfaces with third party software vendors. The Principal Engineer, Software Architecture relies upon wide-ranging experience, using professional concepts and company objectives to resolve complex issues in creative and effective ways.

This role will be specifically responsible for Microservices. The Microservices Architect will lead and develop scalable applications. They will oversee architectural decisions, mentor, and ensure system performance and security.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Technical experience in modular software application architecture development
• Develop software and systems platform architecture
• Work with customers to gather requirements for platform specific system functional specifications
• The design and development of high-level product specification with attention to system integration and feasibility.
• Lead the initial architecture of major sub systems, defining the high-level platform design and reference technologies to be used
• Oversee progress of development teams to ensure consistency with initial design
• Provide technical guidance and coaching to developers and engineers
• Ensure software meets requirements of quality, security, modularity and extensibility
• Coaching and mentoring teams on design practices and helping to resolve issues
• Lead technical exchange meetings with program engineers, other contractors, and customers
• Create requirements definition and analysis for new software frameworks
• Develop documentation of system use cases for software architecture
• Apply and/or develop advanced technologies, scientific principles, theories and concepts
• Perform other job-related duties as assigned

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or equivalent experience in a related field
• 12+ years of experience working in a similar role
• 15+ years of experience as a software developer
• 5+ years of Linux platform experience
• 7+ years of experience in a technical leadership role
• C++ and design pattern experience
• Proven experience as a software architect
• Experience with mitigating design risks using research and proof of concept methods
• Excellent knowledge of software and application design and architecture
• Technical mindset with great attention to detail
• Understand end to end product lifecycle

In addition to the basic requirements, this individual should possess the following:

• Cloud Platform expertise (AWS/Azure/GCP) - critical for modern architectures
• Container orchestration experience (Kubernetes, Docker)
• Microservices architecture patterns and best practices
• Experience with modern observability tools and practices
• API gateway and service mesh technologies
• Event-driven architecture experience
• CI/CD pipeline design and implementation
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) experience
• Modern security architecture patterns (Zero Trust, OAuth 2.0, OIDC)
• Architecture & Design:
• Domain-Driven Design (DDD) experience
• Experience with distributed systems patterns
• Data architecture expertise (both SQL and NoSQL)
• System resilience and fault tolerance patterns
• Performance optimization and scalability expertise
• Experience with architectural decision records (ADRs)
• Modern Development Practices:
• DevOps and SRE principles
• Agile/Scrum methodologies
• Experience with modern version control workflows

The starting pay range for this position is $148,000 to $200,000 per year however, base pay offered may vary depending on the level, skills, experience, job-related knowledge and location.