Principal Software Architect Pleasanton, CA / Sunnyvale, CA

Abbott; Pleasanton (CA); On-site; USD 131,000 - 261,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Career development

Medical coverage

Retirement plan

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Abbott is seeking a Principal Architect to define and govern the architecture strategy for a large-scale, cloud-native platform on Microsoft Azure. You will provide technical leadership across engineering teams and products to ensure scalability, security, reliability, and operational excellence.

The role focuses on creating reference architectures, guardrails, and standards, while partnering with product, security, and executive teams to drive platform modernization and regional optimization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or related field.
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including enterprise and cloud architecture roles.
• 6+ years designing and architecting cloud-native platforms on Microsoft Azure.
• Experience leading architecture for large-scale SaaS platforms and complex distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the architectural vision, roadmap, standards, and technology strategy for a multi-product cloud-native platform on Azure.
• Architect highly scalable, secure, and observable distributed systems handling millions of transactions.
• Lead architecture for event-driven microservices using DDD, API-first design, CQRS, and asynchronous messaging.
• Design platform architecture for Web, Mobile, APIs, and IoT ecosystems.
• Define governance, reference architectures, and engineering standards across product teams.
• Establish enterprise-wide architecture principles for security, scalability, maintainability, and cost optimization.
• Mentor senior engineers and drive architectural excellence across the organization.

Skills

Cloud architecture

Azure

AKS

Microservices

API design

DDD/CQRS

Kubernetes

Security architecture

Observability

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or related field

Tools

Java

Spring Boot

REST APIs

GraphQL

Event-driven messaging

CI/CD

IaC

Job description

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 122,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

Working at Abbott

• Career development with an international company where you can grow the career you dream of.
• Employees can qualify for free medical coverage in our Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO medical plan in the next calendar year.
• An excellent retirement savings plan with a high employer contribution.
• Tuition reimbursement, the Freedom 2 Save student debt program, and FreeU education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.
• A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries worldwide and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.
• A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as the best place to work for diversity, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.

The Opportunity

The Principal Architect is responsible for defining and governing the architecture strategy for a large-scale, multi-product cloud-native platform on Microsoft Azure. This role provides technical leadership across multiple engineering teams and products, ensuring platform scalability, security, reliability, interoperability, and operational excellence.

The architect will define the target architecture for a highly distributed ecosystem consisting of microservices, web applications, mobile applications, IoT device connectivity, APIs, event-driven integrations, data platforms, and AI-enabled capabilities. The role drives architectural consistency, engineering standards, technology strategy, and long-term platform evolution while partnering closely with product, engineering, operations, security, and executive leadership teams.

What You'll Work On

• Define and own the architectural vision, roadmap, standards, and technology strategy for a multi-product cloud-native platform running on Microsoft Azure.
• Architect highly scalable, resilient, secure, and observable distributed systems supporting millions of transactions and connected devices.
• Lead architecture for event-driven microservices ecosystems using domain-driven design (DDD), API-first design, CQRS, and asynchronous messaging patterns.
• Design platform architecture supporting Web UI applications (Angular/React), Mobile Applications (iOS/Android), APIs, and IoT device ecosystems.
• Architect secure ingestion, processing, and management of high-volume IoT device traffic and telemetry at scale.
• Define reference architectures, architectural guardrails, reusable frameworks, and engineering standards across multiple product teams.
• Establish enterprise-wide architecture principles covering security, scalability, availability, maintainability, compliance, performance, and cost optimization.
• Lead architectural decisions involving Azure PaaS and cloud-native services including :
  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
  • Azure API Management
  • Azure Service Bus
  • Azure Event Hub
  • Azure IoT Hub
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Cosmos DB
  • Azure SQL
  • Azure Blob Storage
  • Azure Cache for Redis
  • Azure Entra ID
  • Azure Monitor and Application Insights
• Architect multi-region, highly available, disaster recovery capable solutions with clearly defined RTO and RPO objectives.
• Drive platform modernization initiatives, cloud adoption strategies, and migration of legacy systems to modern cloud-native architectures.
• Ensure consistent implementation of DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code, GitOps, CI/CD, and platform engineering practices.
• Review solution architectures across teams and provide governance through architecture reviews and design authorities.
• Define API governance, data governance, integration patterns, and interoperability standards.
• Partner with security teams to implement Zero Trust architecture principles, threat modeling, and secure software development practices.
• Collaborate with product management and engineering leadership to align business objectives with technical strategy.
• Establish platform observability standards including monitoring, logging, tracing, telemetry, and operational analytics.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, AI/ML capabilities, and industry trends to drive innovation and business value.
• Mentor senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders while fostering architectural excellence across the organization.

Required Qualifications

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or related field. Advanced degree preferred.

Experience

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience in enterprise and cloud architecture roles.
• 6+ years designing and architecting cloud-native platforms on Microsoft Azure.
• Proven experience architecting and delivering large-scale SaaS products serving multiple business domains and customer segments.
• Demonstrated success leading architecture for complex distributed systems consisting of :
  • Microservices
  • Web applications
  • Mobile applications
  • IoT-connected systems
  • Data platforms
  • Event-driven integrations
• Extensive experience designing enterprise-scale platforms using :
  • Java
  • Spring Boot
  • REST APIs
  • GraphQL
  • Event-driven architectures
  • Distributed messaging systems
• Deep expertise in cloud-native design patterns including :
  • Microservices
  • Service Mesh
  • Event Sourcing
  • CQRS
  • DDD
  • Containerization
  • Kubernetes
• Strong experience with Azure services including AKS, API Management, Event Hub, Service Bus, IoT Hub, Cosmos DB, Azure SQL, Functions, Storage Services, Redis, Monitoring, and Security services.
• Experience architecting highly available, globally distributed systems handling high transaction volumes and significant scale.
• Experience establishing enterprise architecture standards, governance practices, and technology roadmaps.
• Experience leading architecture across multiple product teams and large engineering organizations.
• Knowledge of AI/ML architecture, AI agents, intelligent automation, and modern software development lifecycle capabilities is highly desirable.
• Experience in healthcare, regulated environments, or enterprise SaaS platforms is preferred.

Technical Expertise

• Deep understanding of software architecture, distributed systems, scalability patterns, and cloud-native architectures.
• Expert-level knowledge of Azure Well-Architected Framework principles and enterprise cloud design practices.
• Strong expertise in :
  • API Architecture
  • Integration Architecture
  • Data Architecture
  • Security Architecture
  • Platform Architecture
• Experience architecting large-scale event-driven systems leveraging messaging, streaming, and real-time processing.
• Expertise in Kubernetes, container orchestration, platform engineering, and cloud operations.
• Strong understanding of resiliency patterns, fault tolerance, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning.
• Experience implementing observability frameworks including monitoring, distributed tracing, logging, and operational analytics.
• Strong knowledge of Identity and Access Management, Zero Trust, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and enterprise security models.
• Expertise in performance engineering, scalability planning, capacity management, and cost optimization.
• Familiarity with enterprise integration patterns and modern architectural governance practices.
• Strong understanding of data privacy, compliance, and regulated software development requirements.
• Experience creating architecture blueprints, reference architectures, technical standards, and architecture decision records.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Proven ability to influence executive leadership, engineering leaders, architects, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong strategic thinking and ability to translate business goals into technology roadmaps.
• Demonstrated success building alignment across multiple teams, organizations, and product portfolios.
• Strong mentoring, coaching, and talent development capabilities.
• Ability to drive technical excellence while balancing business priorities, delivery timelines, and operational considerations.
• Excellent organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, global, and highly collaborative environment.
• Ability to travel approximately 10%.
• Consistent and reliable attendance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree preferred

Abbott is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to employee diversity.

The base pay for this position is $130,700.00 – $261,300.00. In specific locations, the pay range may vary from the range posted.