Principal AI-Native Architect for Backend & Data

WebMD LLC; Newark (NJ); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401(k) Employer match

Life & Disability Insurance

Paid Time Off

EAP & Transit Benefits

Job summary

WebMD Ignite seeks a Principal Architect to lead AI-native application architecture across backend systems, data pipelines, and LLM-enabled services. You will define standards, patterns, and reference implementations while remaining hands-on to validate designs with senior engineers.

The role requires 7+ years in software architecture and deep experience with cloud platforms, data platforms, and healthcare data privacy.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software architecture, backend engineering, or data engineering with senior or principal leadership.
• Experience architecting distributed backend systems using microservices, APIs, and event-driven patterns.
• Hands-on design and operation of data platforms for high-volume AI workloads (vector stores, graph DBs, distributed caching).
• Proven track record building AI-native or AI-enabled applications with LLM integration and agentic workflows.
• Strong cloud experience (AWS/Azure/GCP) and ability to operate across cloud and on-prem environments.
• Ability to remain hands-on in code while providing architectural leadership.
• Understanding of HIPAA, PHI handling, and healthcare data privacy requirements.
• Excellent communication for engineering and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define and own architecture patterns, standards, and reference implementations.
• Architect complex backend systems, microservices, APIs, streaming, and data pipelines.
• Design high-performance data platforms for AI workloads and semantic retrieval.
• Establish guardrails for AI-native applications including LLM integration and orchestration.
• Lead architecture reviews ensuring scalability, performance, security, cost, and interoperability.
• Set standards for AI-ready APIs, data services, and frameworks for rapid prototyping.
• Collaborate with product, data, DevOps to align technical direction with business outcomes.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise architecture fluency across the org.
• Ensure compliance with HIPAA and PHI handling in healthcare environments.

Skills

Architecting complex systems

Cloud architecture

LLM integration

Data platforms

Security & compliance

Hands-on leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

AWS/JCP cloud platforms

Microservices

Job description

WebMD Ignite seeks a Principal Architect to lead AI-native application architecture across backend systems, data pipelines, and LLM-enabled services. You will define standards, patterns, and reference implementations while remaining hands-on to validate designs with senior engineers.

The role requires 7+ years in software architecture and deep experience with cloud platforms, data platforms, and healthcare data privacy.