Senior Platform Architect - Microservices & Cloud Strategy

Blue Shield of CA; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Stellarus is seeking a Principal, Application Architecture to lead architecture decisions for major platform capabilities and cross-domain initiatives, translating platform strategy into systems engineers can build, test, deploy, and operate.

The role focuses on cloud-native, microservices-based solutions, while mentoring senior engineers and aligning designs with regulatory and security needs, including HIPAA/SOC2, with hands-on involvement in code and production tradeoffs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or 4 years of relevant experience in lieu of a degree.
• 10+ years of software engineering, application architecture, platform engineering, or related technical experience.
• Experience leading application architecture for distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, microservices, internal platforms, or modernization initiatives.
• Hands-on engineering background guiding service design, API contracts, code structure, data modeling, testing, deployment, and production tradeoffs.
• Deep experience with domain-driven design, service decomposition, integration architecture, shared services, customer extensions, and reusable platform patterns.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and translate platform strategy into clear architecture direction and execution standards.
• Experience designing and operating microservices and event-driven systems in a cloud environment. Azure preferred; AWS or GCP experience is transferable.
• Strong API and data architecture judgment, including REST, OpenAPI, PostgreSQL, analytics handoffs, authorization, tenant/customer isolation, and auditability.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers, architects, and technical leads.
• Healthcare, payer, pharma, regulated‑industry, SOC 2, HIPAA, or security‑sensitive platform experience is strongly preferred.
• Enterprise architecture experience is a plus, especially when paired with hands‑on application architecture and delivery execution.
• Excellent written communication. You can make architecture decisions clear, concise, and useful to the teams who need to execute them.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture decisions for major platform capabilities and cross-domain initiatives.
• Turn platform strategy into systems that engineering teams can build, test, deploy, and operate.
• Drive build-vs-buy, integration consolidation, and modernization decisions for the platform capabilities it owns.
• Help teams design products for payer, provider, pharma, and partner workflows.
• Mentor senior engineers, architects, and technical leads.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud-native platforms

Microservices

API design

Data modeling

OpenAPI

Azure

AWS/GCP

Mentoring

Architectural leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

PostgreSQL

AzureTools

OpenAPI tooling

Job description

Stellarus is seeking a Principal, Application Architecture to lead architecture decisions for major platform capabilities and cross-domain initiatives, translating platform strategy into systems engineers can build, test, deploy, and operate.

The role focuses on cloud-native, microservices-based solutions, while mentoring senior engineers and aligning designs with regulatory and security needs, including HIPAA/SOC2, with hands-on involvement in code and production tradeoffs.