Application Architecture, Sr. Principal

Blue Shield of CA; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

In-office collaboration

Job summary

Stellarus is seeking a Sr. Principal Application Architect to shape reusable services, vendor integrations, and AI-driven development patterns across our payer, provider, pharma, and partner workflows.

You will set enterprise architecture direction with hands-on coding and system design, influencing engineers without direct management authority. The role emphasizes production readiness, marketplace capabilities, and multi-tenant, secure data boundaries within a cloud-native platform.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher and 4+ years of relevant experience in lieu of a degree.
• 12+ years of software engineering, application architecture, platform engineering, or related technical experience.
• Extensive experience setting application architecture direction for enterprise-scale distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, internal platforms, marketplace platforms, or large-scale modernization.
• Expert knowledge of microservices, API ecosystems, event-driven architecture, domain-driven design, integration strategy, and platform services.
• Strong hands-on engineering background with code structure, service design, API contracts, data modeling, testing, deployment, and production failure modes.
• Experience designing and operating microservices and event-driven systems in a cloud environment (Azure preferred; AWS/GCP transferable).
• Ability to lead complex technical decision-making across multiple stakeholders without relying on architecture theater.
• Mentoring staff and principal-level engineers and architects.
• Healthcare, payer, pharma or security-sensitive platforms preferred.
• Excellent written communication; able to make architecture decisions clear and actionable.

Responsibilities

• Shape how Stellarus designs reusable services and market-enabled platform capabilities.
• Define integration patterns with vendors and translate them into reusable marketplace capabilities.
• Apply AI-assisted development patterns and turn platform strategy into executable systems.
• Lead architecture direction for enterprise-scale distributed systems with hands-on involvement.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, security, and operations to ensure production readiness.
• Mentor and guide senior engineers and architects on architectural standards and practices.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Microservices

Event-driven design

Domain-driven design

Vendor integration

CI/CD

Mentoring staff

Communication

Cloud-native platforms

Production readiness

Education

Bachelor's degree or High School Diploma/GED with 4+ years experience

Tools

TypeScript

Node.js

NestJS

React

Next.js

Python

PostgreSQL

Azure

AWS

GCP

Azure Kubernetes Service

Azure API Management

Azure Service Bus

Dapr

Terraform

ArgoCD

GitHub Actions

Docker

Auth0

OAuth2/OpenID Connect

API contracts/OpenAPI

Nx monorepo

Job description

Your Role

The Stellarus Application Engineering team builds and operates the platform for payer operations, member experiences, customer integrations, pharma workflows, internal products, and marketplace capabilities. The Application Architecture, Sr. Principal will report to the Sr. Director, Application Architecture. In this role, you will shape how Stellarus designs reusable services, integrates strategic vendors, applies AI-assisted development patterns, and turns platform strategy into systems that engineering teams can build, test, deploy, and operate.

The platform is built around domain-owned microservices, reusable APIs, event-driven workflows, vendor integrations, and a marketplace of capabilities that can be composed across customers and product lines.

This is our most senior individual-contributor architecture role. The Senior Principal is the technical authority for application architecture across the platform: someone who sets enterprise-level architecture direction without needing a team to do it, and who is close enough to the code, system design, and production tradeoffs to make that direction credible to engineers. This role has overlap with enterprise architecture, and a background in enterprise architecture is a plus, but the work is closer to the code, system design, engineering execution, AI development improvements, vendor integration, and production tradeoffs than to enterprise architecture theater.

Stellarus generally takes a build-over-buy approach when the capability is core to our platform. This role owns the call on what we build, where we integrate with vendors, how those integrations become reusable marketplace capabilities, and how teams design products for payer, provider, pharma, and partner workflows.

Our leadership model is about developing great leaders at all levels and creating opportunities for our people to grow - personally, professionally, and financially. We are looking for leaders that are energized by creative and critical thinking, building and sustaining high-performing teams, getting results the right way, and fostering continuous learning.

Your Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor's degree or High School Diploma/GED and 4 years of additional relevant experience in lieu of a degree.


• 12+ years of software engineering, application architecture, platform engineering, or related technical experience.


• Extensive experience setting application architecture direction for enterprise-scale distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, internal platforms, marketplace platforms, or large-scale modernization.


• Expert knowledge of microservices, API ecosystems, event-driven architecture, domain-driven design, integration strategy, and platform services.


• Strong hands-on engineering background. You should be comfortable discussing code structure, service design, API contracts, data modeling, testing, deployment, and production failure modes.


• Experience designing and operating microservices and event-driven systems in a cloud environment. Azure experience is preferred; AWS or GCP experience is transferable.


• Strong understanding of TypeScript, Node.js, APIs, React-based application platforms, containerized workloads, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and infrastructure automation.


• Experience with domain-driven design, service decomposition, integration architecture, and the tradeoffs between shared services, product services, and customer-specific extensions.


• Practical experience with build-versus-buy decisions, vendor integration, platform consolidation, marketplace capabilities, or turning repeated integration patterns into reusable platform services.


• Strong API and data architecture judgment, including REST, OpenAPI, event contracts, PostgreSQL, analytics handoffs, authorization, tenant/customer isolation, and auditability.


• Proven ability to lead complex technical decision-making across engineering, product, security, infrastructure, operations, and executive stakeholders without relying on generic architecture theater.


• Demonstrated ability to create architecture standards, decision frameworks, and reusable patterns that influence engineering execution without formal management authority.


• Experience mentoring staff and principal-level engineers and architects.


• Healthcare, payer, pharma, regulated-industry, SOC 2, HIPAA, or security-sensitive platform experience is strongly preferred.


• Enterprise architecture experience is a plus, especially when paired with hands-on application architecture and delivery experience.


• Excellent written communication. You can make architecture decisions clear, concise, and useful to the teams who need to execute them.

Preferred Knowledge and Experience

Stellarus is building primarily with:

• TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, React, Next.js, Python


• PostgreSQL, Azure Blob Storage, Snowflake


• Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure API Management, Azure Service Bus


• Dapr for service invocation and pub/sub


• Terraform, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, Docker


• Auth0, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, API key support for integrations


• Nx monorepo, API contract-first development, automated testing

For this role, we especially value experience with:

• Designing enterprise marketplace platforms, multi-tenant systems, customer-isolated data boundaries, or partner integrations


• Regulated platform capabilities in healthcare, payer, or pharma environments


• Enterprise architecture paired with hands-on application architecture and delivery execution

Hybrid

This role requires employees to be in-office based on our hybrid workplace model, balancing purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility. For most teams, this means coming into the office two days each week.

Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location will work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.