Lead Architect / Principal Engineer

Litmus; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

Litmus in Santa Clara, CA, is seeking a Senior Platform Architect to own the overall technical architecture of our edge-to-cloud industrial AI data platform. You will set the long-term vision, balance speed, scale, and maintainability, and drive cross-team architectural decisions.

You will mentor senior engineers, guide critical system design, and partner with product leadership to shape enterprise-ready solutions.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering with an architectural impact.
• Expert-level Go and distributed systems design.
• Mastery of Docker and Kubernetes in production-scale deployments.
• Deep Linux/Unix expertise across OS layers.
• Proven ability to make long-term architectural decisions thoughtfully.

Responsibilities

• Own the platform architecture and long-term vision balancing speed, scale, and maintainability.
• Drive architectural decisions across teams ensuring reliability and velocity.
• Identify systemic engineering problems and lead org-wide solutions.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise the technical bar.
• Represent architecture in cross-functional discussions with product and leadership.

Skills

Go

Distributed systems

Linux/Unix

Communication

Leadership through influence

Cloud-native

CI/CD

DevOps

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Who is Litmus

Litmus is building the data foundation that powers industrial AI.

AI doesn’t work without real-world, contextualized data - Litmus makes that data usable. As AI adoption accelerates, most industrial environments still can’t access or use their operational data. We solve that gap.

We’re a growth-stage software company helping manufacturers access, structure, and use real-time data from machines, systems, and sensors at the edge. Our platform sits at the intersection of edge computing, AI, and industrial operations, enabling some of the world’s largest companies to run operations in real time, reduce downtime, and optimize production.

Backed by leading investors and trusted by global manufacturers and partners like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, and Mitsubishi, Litmus is powering the shift toward software-defined manufacturing.

Why join Litmus

Build the infrastructure that makes industrial AI possible

AI is moving beyond the cloud and into the physical world. At Litmus, you’ll build the infrastructure that enables real-time data to power AI and machine learning systems in production environments.

Work on problems where software meets the real world

Most AI systems fail without access to real-world data. You’ll build the layer that makes them viable in production. We solve challenges at the intersection of distributed systems, real-time data, and industrial constraints — where reliability, scale, and performance are non-negotiable.

Have real impact, fast

You’ll work on systems used by real customers in production, with direct impact on product and company trajectory. As a scaling company, we move quickly. You’ll have ownership, visibility, and the ability to shape both product and company as we scale.

Join a high-performance team

We’re building a team that holds a high bar and pushes each other to improve. You’ll work alongside experienced operators, engineers, and leaders who have done this before and are building again at scale. We hire people who take ownership, move quickly, and care about outcomes. No passengers.

Our culture

At Litmus, the team is collaborative, curious, and low ego. People are scrappy, take ownership, and look for ways to make an impact. We value empathy just as much as execution, whether that’s in how we build, how we communicate, or how we support each other.

We’re a growing company, so things move quickly and not everything is perfectly defined. If you enjoy figuring things out, working closely with others, and making steady progress, you’ll do well here.

What You’ll Do

• Own the overall technical architecture of the platform — set the long-term vision and make the hard calls that balance speed, scale, and maintainability.
• Drive architectural decisions across multiple teams and systems, ensuring consistency, reliability, and developer velocity.
• Identify systemic engineering problems early and lead solutions that create org-wide leverage.
• Partner with engineering leads to design and review critical systems before they’re built — not after.
• Champion and standardize engineering patterns, tooling, and infrastructure best practices across the organization.
• Evaluate emerging technologies with clear-eyed judgment and guide adoption where it genuinely moves the needle.
• Mentor and develop senior and staff engineers — raise the technical bar and help your colleagues do their best work.
• Represent engineering architecture in cross-functional discussions with product, operations, and leadership.
• Contribute to hiring decisions and help shape what world-class engineering looks like at our company.

What We’re Looking For

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with a clear track record of org-wide architectural impact.
• Expert-level Go and deep knowledge of distributed systems design, microservices, and large-scale service architectures.
• Mastery of Docker and Kubernetes — you’ve designed production-grade, large-scale deployments and know where things break.
• Deep Linux/Unix expertise — you understand the systems your architecture runs on, from the OS level up.
• Proven ability to make irreversible architectural decisions thoughtfully, with an eye on long-term consequences.
• Strong communicator — you can make complex technical tradeoffs clear to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience leading through influence, not authority — you bring people along rather than dictating direction.
• Solid understanding of cloud-native infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps best practices.

Nice to Have

• Experience with industrial IoT, edge computing, or real-time data pipelines (MQTT, NATS, OPC-UA).
• Published Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), technical writing, or open source contributions.
• Background in platform engineering, developer productivity, or DevSecOps.
• Experience with multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategies.
• Time at a high-growth startup — you’ve felt the pressure of scaling fast and learned from it.