Principal Software Architect (onsite)

Brainpower360; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Brainpower360 seeks a senior software design and stability expert to lead architectural decisions and improve system reliability. You will drive root-cause analysis for complex defects, quantify and reduce technical debt, and design backward-compatible redesigns with migration strategies.

You will also build in-house static-analysis rules and govern CI/CD quality gates. The role requires extensive hands-on development in C#/.NET and modern C++ with leadership experience, plus the ability to

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (BS) or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
• Master's degree (MS), Ph.D. — preferred
• 15+ years hands-on software development experience
• 5+ years in architecture/technical-lead role
• 3+ years managing an engineering team (5+ engineers)
• Expert-level C# with .NET and async programming
• Hands-on modern C++ (11+) experience
• Interoperability experience between C# and C++ is a plus

Responsibilities

• Identify architectural anti-patterns and perform root-cause analysis
• Trace root causes of defects like performance issues, memory leaks, and concurrency bugs
• Quantify technical debt and build risk-prioritized improvement roadmap
• Propose actionable redesigns with backward compatibility and migration strategy
• Develop in-house static-analysis rules and integrate into CI
• Set up tiered severity gates in the build process
• Establish system-wide quality standards for memory safety and resource disposal
• Maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and technical docs
• Report risks and progress to executives and other departments

Skills

Software architecture

Technical leadership

Programming languages

Root-cause analysis

CI/CD

Memory management

Cross-language interoperability

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related

Master's degree preferred

PhD preferred

Tools

C#/.NET

C++ (11+), RAII

LINQ & async/await

P/Invoke / C++/CLI

Job description

1. Software Design Defect Analysis & Resolution

• Identify architectural anti-patterns in existing codebases and perform root-cause analysis
• Trace root causes of hard-to-reproduce defects such as performance degradation, memory leaks, and concurrency bugs (race conditions, deadlocks)
• Quantify technical debt in legacy systems and build a risk-prioritized improvement roadmap
• Propose actionable redesign solutions — including backward-compatibility and migration strategy — rather than purely theoretical proposal

2. Design & Management of Software Stability Assurance System

• Develop in-house static-analysis diagnostic rules and integrate them into the CI pipeline
• Design tiered severity quality gates and enforce them in the build process
• Design suppression/waiver governance policy — format validation, deadline management, and automatic severity escalation upon deadline expiration
• Establish system-level quality standards for memory safety, exception-handling consistency, and resource-disposal pattern
• Establish post-mortem processes based on log/dump analysis following incident

3. Technical Problem Analysis, Design & Management

• Break down cross-team technical challenges, define design direction, and manage assigned engineers' progress
• Operate code/design review processes and give final approval on technical decision
• Maintain technical documentation systems such as Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
• Report technical risks and progress status to executives and other department

Required Qualification

Education

• Bachelor's degree (BS) or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field - require
• Master's degree (MS), Ph.D. — preferred

Experience

• 15+ years of hands-on software development experience, including 5+ years in an architecture/technical-lead role
• 3+ years managing an engineering team (team size of 5 or more
• Experience leading technical evaluation
• C#: Expert-level with .NET (Framework/Core/5+), asynchronous programming (async/await, Task), LINQ, and memory management (including GC tuning
• C++: Hands-on experience with modern C++ (11 and later), RAII, smart pointers, and template metaprogramming
• Interoperability experience between the two languages (P/Invoke, C++/CLI, etc.) — preferred

System-Level Understanding

• File I/O: File-system structure, buffering/caching strategies, performance characteristics of large-file processing, file locking and concurrent-access control
• Database (covering RDB / NoSQL / File-based DB): Understanding of internal behavior, consistency models, and integration with query engine
• OS: Process/thread models, memory management, kernel/user-mode transitions, and platform differences between Windows and Linux

Quality & Design Competence

• Experience developing or customizing static-analysis tool
• Deep understanding and practical application of design and architecture patterns (Layered, Hexagonal, Event-Driven, etc.)
• Experience designing CI/CD pipelines and building quality gate
• Experience automating test design/structuring — distinct from test-execution automation — including identifying test targets, generating test scaffolding, and managing coverage
• Experience identifying technical debt through code review and formulating refactoring strategy

Communication

• Business-level English (capable of documentation, video conference, and technical discussion
• Ability to explain technical content to non-technical stakeholder

Preferred Qualification

• Domain experience in industrial automation, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), semiconductor/electronics equipment, or robotic
• Experience leading gradual migration/modernization projects for large-scale legacy system
• Experience using and driving team adoption of AI coding assistants (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, etc.)
• Contributions to open-source static-analysis tools, or experience distributing internally developed tooling
• Experience working with multinational team