Principal Architect, AI-Native Applications

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, a division of WebMD and Internet Brands, is the growth partner for healthcare organizations. We guide people to better health at all stages of their journey, from discovery to recovery. Our combination of leading brands in the industry—including WebMD, Medscape, Krames, PulsePoint, Vitals, The Wellness Network, Mercury Healthcare, and Healthwise—offers comprehensive solutions that engage individuals with timely, relevant messaging that optimizes experiences and outcomes, driving loyalty and lifetime value for our clients. Learn more at WebMDIgnite.com.

WebMD Ignite, a division of WebMD and Internet Brands, is the growth partner for healthcare organizations. We guide people to better health at all stages of their journey, from discovery to recovery. Our combination of leading brands in the industry — including WebMD, Medscape, Krames, PulsePoint, Vitals, The Wellness Network, Mercury Healthcare, and Healthwise — offers comprehensive solutions that engage individuals with timely, relevant messaging that optimizes experiences and outcomes, driving loyalty and lifetime value for our clients. Learn more at WebMDIgnite.com.

About the Role:

The Principal Architect, AI-Native Applications is the lead technical authority for how WebMD Ignite designs, builds, and scales modern applications in an AI-native environment. This role defines the architectural patterns, standards, and reference implementations that development teams across the organization build against, with a particular focus on backend systems, data-intensive services, and applications that embed large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, and agentic workflows. The Principal Architect operates as a hands-on individual contributor and technical leader, remaining close enough to the code to pair with senior engineers and validate design decisions directly. This is a senior, cross-cutting role that establishes a coherent application architecture practice where design decisions are currently made project by project.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and own the application architecture patterns, standards, and reference implementations that development teams build against across the organization.

• Architect complex backend systems, including microservices architectures, APIs, streaming and event-driven protocols, and data engineering pipelines.

• Design high-performance data platforms for AI workloads, including vector stores, graph databases, distributed caching, and semantic retrieval over million-record corpora.

• Establish the patterns and guardrails for AI-native applications, including LLM integration, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-model orchestration, and agentic workflows.

• Conduct architecture reviews and ensure solution designs meet scalability, performance, security, interoperability, and cost requirements across both cloud and on-premises environments.

• Set standards for AI-ready APIs, data services, and application frameworks that enable rapid prototyping and production rollout of new capabilities.

• Partner with engineering, product, data, and DevOps leaders to align technical direction with business outcomes and delivery timelines.

• Ensure architectures meet the security, compliance, and privacy requirements of regulated healthcare environments, including HIPAA and the handling of protected health information (PHI).

• Provide technical mentorship to senior engineers and raise the overall architecture fluency of the engineering organization.

Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in software architecture, backend engineering, or data engineering, including senior or principal-level technical leadership.

• Demonstrated experience architecting complex, distributed backend systems using microservices, APIs, and event-driven or streaming patterns.

• Hands-on experience designing and operating data platforms for high-volume, high-dimensional workloads, including vector databases, graph databases, distributed caching, and semantic retrieval.

• Practical experience building AI-native or AI-enabled applications, including LLM integration, retrieval-augmented generation, orchestration frameworks, and agentic systems.

• Strong command of cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and experience operating across both cloud and on-premises environments.

• Ability to remain hands-on in code while providing architecture-level leadership.

• Working knowledge of the security, privacy, and compliance requirements of healthcare data environments, including HIPAA and PHI handling.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for both engineering and business audiences.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience in a healthcare, health IT, or other regulated data environment.

• Experience operating within HITRUST, NIST, or similar compliance frameworks.

• Familiarity with modern warehouse/lakehouse and high-performance analytical data platforms.

• Experience defining developer tooling, standards, and AI-assisted software development workflows.

Compensation:

$150,000 - $200,000

Bonus Eligible:

This position is also eligible for a discretionary company bonus, based upon business results.

Benefits:

• Health Insurance (medical, dental, and vision coverage)
• Paid Time Off (including vacation, sick leave, and flexible holiday days)
• 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer matching
• Life and Disability Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Commuter and/or Transit Benefits (if applicable)

Eligibility for specific benefits may vary based on job classification, schedule (e.g., full-time vs. part-time), work location and length of employment.