Principal System Architect

LI-COR; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

LI-COR Environmental seeks a Principal System Architect to provide technical direction for connected products and cloud platforms. You will own end-to-end system architecture, collaborating with engineering, product, science, quality, IT, and DevOps to deliver scalable and secure solutions.

The role combines hands-on engineering with strategic oversight, guiding data models, device-to-cloud integration, and platform modernization while ensuring cost efficiency and reliability across production

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent with strong fundamentals.
• 12+ years in software and cloud engineering with architect experience.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and architecture ownership.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain target architecture, system boundaries, data models, integration patterns, and technical roadmap for connected products and cloud platforms.
• Lead architecture reviews for services, APIs, data pipelines, databases, identity, applications, deployment patterns, and device-to-cloud communication.
• Simplify the platform by identifying coupling, duplicate processing, fragile patterns, and services to consolidate, redesign, or retire.
• Guide platform modernization and the use of managed cloud services based on product needs, cost, portability, security, and reliability.
• Maintain architecture decisions and documentation to preserve knowledge access and data portability.

Skills

System architecture

Cloud engineering

Backend engineering

Communication

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related discipline

Tools

AWS

Terraform

Job description

Primary Work Location

Lincoln, NE or Remote in the U.S.

Overview

The Principal System Architect provides technical direction and hands-on engineering for LI-COR Environmental’s connected products and cloud platforms. This individual contributor works across instruments, firmware, connectivity, cloud services, data, and applications to build systems that are reliable, secure, scalable, supportable, and economically sustainable. The architect partners with engineering, product, science, quality, IT and DevOps, and external technology partners to turn complex needs into practical technical direction.

Professional Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent demonstrated experience. A master’s degree is preferred.

Qualifications

• Typically 12 or more years of software and cloud engineering experience, including significant experience as a system, solution, platform, or principal architect for production systems.
• Demonstrated architecture ownership for a commercial IoT, connected device, industrial, scientific, telemetry, or other high volume data platform.
• Deep experience with AWS or a comparable public cloud, including compute, containers, networking, databases, storage, identity and access, observability, security, resiliency, and infrastructure as code.
• Strong backend engineering and API design skills, with hands-on proficiency in at least one modern backend language.
• Experience with event driven and distributed systems, device ingestion, message delivery, high volume time series data, data modeling, and data lifecycle management.
• Experience with CI/CD, automated testing, observability, incident response, and secure software delivery at production scale.
• Ability to connect architecture decisions to delivery effort, operational cost, product economics, and customer impact.
• Strong communication, technical judgment, systems thinking, and the ability to lead through influence across teams and external partners.

Preferred Experience

• Architecture spanning embedded devices or firmware, cellular or gateway connectivity, cloud ingestion, web or mobile applications, and analytics.
• Regulated, validated, or quality controlled systems with requirements for data access, retention, privacy, auditability, and change control.
• Platform modernization, microservice simplification, globally distributed teams, or blended employee and contractor delivery models.
• Professional level cloud certification or equivalent practical expertise.

General

• Self starter and motivated. Enjoy challenges. Proven drive to achieve goals.
• Creative. High insight, curiosity and problem solving ability. High attention to detail.
• Good interpersonal and networking skills.
• Team player. Enjoys and works well with other people in a team environment.
• Effective oral and written communication skills in English.
• Dependable, positive attitude and good attendance.
• High ethics, integrity, honesty, patience.

Position Responsibilities

Architecture and Platform Direction:

• Define and maintain the target architecture, system boundaries, data models, integration patterns, and technical roadmap for connected products and cloud platforms.
• Lead architecture reviews for services, APIs, data pipelines, databases, identity, applications, deployment patterns, and device-to-cloud communication.
• Simplify the platform by identifying unnecessary coupling, duplicate processing, fragile patterns, and services that should be consolidated, redesigned, or retired.
• Guide platform modernization and the use of managed cloud services based on product needs, customer continuity, cost, portability, security, reliability, and operational burden.
• Maintain architecture decisions and documentation so LI-COR retains the knowledge, access, data portability, and technical control needed to make sound future decisions.

Device to Cloud Architecture:

• Guide how devices produce data and how cloud services receive, process, store, and present it, including schemas, batching, retries, deduplication, derived data, and retention.
• Partner with Firmware and Hardware Engineering to identify connectivity, scalability, reliability, support, and cost implications early in product development.
• Review new products and sensor integrations for downstream effects on cloud services, storage, analytics, applications, and cost-to-serve.

Reliability Security and Operations:

• Define end-to-end observability and nonfunctional requirements for availability, performance, security, privacy, scalability, recovery, and supportability.
• Partner with Engineering and IT and DevOps on CI/CD, infrastructure as code, release architecture, incident response, disaster recovery, vulnerability remediation, and operational readiness.
• Provide technical leadership during significant incidents and recurring performance or connectivity issues, driving root cause correction and durable improvement.
• Ensure platform designs support applicable validation, data separation, retention, privacy, auditability, and customer contractual requirements.

Technical Leadership:

• Serve as a technical partner to the Software and Cloud leader and as an architecture authority across engineering, product, science, quality, and operations.
• Remain hands-on through backend design and implementation, prototypes, technical investigations, code reviews, and resolution of high risk production issues.
• Translate product intent into technically complete approaches and communicate tradeoffs, risks, costs, and recommendations to technical teams and business leaders.
• Mentor engineers and strengthen architecture capability across employees and partners so knowledge and decision quality do not depend on one person.
• Act as LI-COR’s technical counterpart with cloud, data, connectivity, and engineering partners while business leaders retain commercial and contract authority.

General

• Periodic travel to LI-COR locations, partner sites, or team working sessions may be required.
• Other job related duties as assigned.