Principal Engineer

Coatesgroup; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Thrive Program

Global Wellness paid day off

Give Back Day

Job summary

Coates Group in Chicago seeks a Senior Software Architect to define long‑term technical direction, translate strategy into architecture, and lead multi‑team programs for large‑scale systems. You will mentor engineers, drive platform modernization, govern design reviews, and ensure scalable, secure, and reliable solutions while balancing delivery speed with risk and cost.

Enjoy a leadership role within a culture that prizes architecture excellence, mentorship, and measurable impact across

Qualifications

• 12+ years in software engineering with large-scale or mission-critical systems.
• Experience designing and evolving architectures across multiple teams or platforms.
• Influence technical direction beyond a single team or domain.
• Proven success leading system transformations and modernization efforts.
• Experience communicating tech concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Hands-on practice with cloud-native, distributed architectures, and secure-by-design approaches.

Responsibilities

• Defines and evolves long‑term technical and architectural direction across platforms and domains.
• Translates strategy into architectural principles, reference architectures, and roadmaps.
• Leads design of large-scale, distributed, mission-critical systems across teams.
• Balances delivery speed, cost, risk, and long‑term sustainability.
• Ensures engineering practices and standards enable high‑quality delivery at scale.
• Provides architectural governance via reviews, records, and reference implementations.
• Sets expectations for scalability, performance, resilience, security, and reliability.
• Owns long‑term health and resilience of critical platforms, addressing systemic risk.
• Acts as final escalation point for complex engineering challenges and incidents.
• Mentors senior engineers to build architectural judgment and systems thinking.

Skills

Architectural leadership

Cloud-native systems

Distributed architectures

CI/CD

Reliability engineering

Security-by-design

AI

Mentorship

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's in CS or related field

Tools

AWS

Azure

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Responsibilities

• Technical Direction & Architecture: Defines and evolves the long‑term technical and architectural direction across platforms and domains, ensuring alignment with business strategy and customer outcomes.
• Translates business strategy into architectural principles, reference architectures, and multi‑platform technical roadmaps.
• Leads the design of large‑scale, distributed, and mission‑critical systems across teams.
• Balances delivery speed, cost, risk, and long‑term sustainability in major technical decisions.
• Engineering Excellence & Governance: Ensures engineering practices, standards, and decision‑making enable high‑quality, consistent delivery at scale.
• Establishes and champions pragmatic engineering and architecture standards that are adopted in practice.
• Provides architectural governance through design reviews, decision records, and reference implementations.
• Sets expectations for scalability, performance, resilience, security, and reliability in system design.
• Platform Health, Risk & Sustainability: Owns the long‑term health and resilience of critical platforms by proactively addressing systemic risk and technical debt.
• Identifies and resolves cross‑domain architectural risks before they impact delivery or operations.
• Acts as the final technical escalation point for complex, ambiguous, or systemic engineering challenges.
• Leads root‑cause analysis for major incidents, ensuring systemic fixes and sustainable outcomes.
• Technical Leadership & Organizational Influence: Raises the technical capability and effectiveness of the organization through influence, mentorship, and trusted technical leadership.
• Mentors senior engineers and technical leaders to build architectural judgement and systems thinking.
• Raises the technical bar through exemplary design quality, documentation, and decision‑making.
• Communicates technical trade‑offs, risks, and opportunities clearly to senior and executive leaders.
• Architecture Leadership, Technical Depth, Systems Thinking, Complex Problem Solving, Strategic Technology Judgement, Influence Without Authority, Delivery Enablement.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, including significant time working on large‑scale, complex, or mission‑critical systems.
• Proven experience designing & evolving architectures across multiple teams, products, or platforms.
• Track record of influencing technical direction beyond a single team or domain.
• Demonstrated success leading or shaping major system transformations, platform initiatives, or modernization efforts.
• Experience operating at senior stakeholder level, communicating technical concepts to non‑technical audiences.
• Hands‑on experience in modern engineering practices (cloud‑native systems, distributed architectures, CI/CD, reliability engineering, security‑by‑design, AI).

Benefits

The benefits include an annual market competitive bonus program and our “Thrive Program” which includes flexible work options, virtual yoga or meditation, a Global Wellness paid day off, and a “Give Back Day” to allow our Crew an opportunity to make an impact in the community.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Coates Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, national or ethnic origin, gender, religion, disability, age, political affiliation or belief, disabled veteran, veteran of the Vietnam Era, or citizenship status (except in those special circumstances permitted or mandated by law).