Senior Principal, Platform Architecture & Strategy

Blue Shield of CA; Huntsville (AL); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Stellarus is seeking a Senior Principal Application Architect to shape reusable services and platform strategy. You will influence enterprise architecture across a cloud-native environment, guiding vendor integrations and AI-assisted development patterns while remaining hands-on with code and system design.

You will lead architecture decisions for mission-critical distributed systems and mentor staff, with a hybrid work model requiring in-office presence two days per week.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent with 4 years of additional relevant experience.
• 12+ years of software engineering or architecture experience.
• Experience setting architecture direction for enterprise-scale distributed systems and cloud-native platforms.
• Expert knowledge of microservices, API ecosystems, event-driven architecture, and domain-driven design.
• Hands-on engineering background; able to discuss code structure, service design, and deployment.
• Experience designing and operating microservices in cloud environments; Azure preferred.
• Strong knowledge of TypeScript, Node.js, APIs, React-based platforms, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and infra automation.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical decisions across multiple stakeholders.
• Experience with build-versus-buy, vendor integration, and marketplace capabilities.
• Strong API and data-architecture judgment (REST, OpenAPI, PostgreSQL, analytics handoffs).
• Excellent written communication; able to create reusable patterns and standards.

Responsibilities

• Shape how Stellarus designs reusable services and vendor integrations.
• Turn platform strategy into architectures that engineers can implement, test, and operate.
• Own enterprise architecture direction with hands-on execution and production tradeoffs.
• Lead API/data architecture decisions and mentor other engineers.

Skills

Enterprise-scale systems

Architecture decisions

Leadership & mentoring

Microservices

Domain-driven design

Cloud-native platforms

APIs & OpenAPI

Code-level design

Production reliability

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or High School Diploma/GED

Tools

Azure Kubernetes Service

Azure API Management

Azure Service Bus

PostgreSQL

Snowflake

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

ArgoCD

GitHub Actions

TypeScript

Node.js

NestJS

React/Next.js

Python

OpenAPI

API contracts

Job description

Stellarus is seeking a Senior Principal Application Architect to shape reusable services and platform strategy. You will influence enterprise architecture across a cloud-native environment, guiding vendor integrations and AI-assisted development patterns while remaining hands-on with code and system design.

You will lead architecture decisions for mission-critical distributed systems and mentor staff, with a hybrid work model requiring in-office presence two days per week.