Principal System Architect Jobs
Principal System Architect jobs are open across defense, cloud infrastructure, financial services, healthcare technology, and enterprise software, from senior engineer to staff and principal levels, with common specializations in distributed systems, embedded architecture, and platform engineering. Find a role that fits from the openings below and apply directly.
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Career-defining. Life-changing.
At iRhythm, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your skills and your career while impacting the lives of people around the world. iRhythm is shaping a future where everyone, everywhere can access the best possible cardiac health solutions. Every day, we collaborate, create, and constantly reimagine what’s possible. We think big and move fast, driven by our commitment to put patients first and improve lives. We need builders like you. Curious and innovative problem solvers looking for the chance to meaningfully shape the future of cardiac health, our company, and your career.
About This Role:
The Principal Architect is a senior individual-contributor who defines, leads, and governs the software architecture vision across our device and digital ecosystem. This includes our on-device firmware, cloud services, analytics platforms, data pipelines, clinician and patient-facing applications, AI/ML enablement platforms, and operational software systems.
This leader drives architectural excellence, technology strategy, and systems coherence across R&D, product, clinical, data science, and the intersection of our products with IT. The role ensures that the on-device and off-device software ecosystem is secure, scalable, resilient, compliant, and aligned with product strategy and long-term business goals. Operating at an enterprise level, this role influences senior stakeholders across engineering, product, quality, regulatory, and security while maintaining deep technical credibility.
Key Responsibilities
Technology & Architecture Strategy
- Define the multiyear architecture strategy for all product software systems, spanning cloud, application, data, integration, and ML/AI infrastructure.
- Establish architectural principles, reference architectures, and guardrails that support reliability, performance, interoperability, maintainability, and regulatory compliance.
- Ensure holistic systems thinking across software platforms, clinical workflows, device interactions, and data flows.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and provide strategic recommendations for adoption, modernization, and platform evolution.
Architectural Leadership & Governance
- Lead cross-functional architecture forums and governance processes, ensuring consistent patterns, shared services, and disciplined decision-making across teams.
- Drive architectural clarity early in product development by guiding systems decomposition, API strategies, data models, and cloud architectures.
- Review key technical proposals, high-impact design decisions, and fundamental platform changes across R&D teams.
- Champion engineering quality standards for architecture, coding, testing, observability, and documentation.
Cross Functional Influence & Collaboration
- Partner with product management to translate business needs into scalable technical strategies and architectural roadmaps.
- Collaborate with security, privacy, regulatory, quality, and clinical teams to ensure designs meet medical device standards and software compliance requirements.
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to senior leadership, articulating architectural options, trade-offs, risks, and business impacts.
- Bridge off-device and on-device systems to ensure seamless end-to-end workflows, data flows, and system integrity.
Execution Support & Technical Leadership
- Provide architectural oversight throughout the SDLC, guiding teams during concepting, detailed design, implementation, and release.
- Drive standardization, reducing duplication and accelerating development velocity through clear architectural patterns.
- Mentor engineering leads and architects across the organization through thought leadership, coaching, and technical review.
- Lead technical investigation and resolution of complex systemic issues, spanning data, scalability, reliability, or workflow interactions.
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related field; advanced degree preferred.
- 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering or architecture, with deep expertise in large-scale distributed systems, cloud architectures, and modern application platforms.
- Proven experience architecting regulated or high reliability systems (preferably within medical, health tech, or similar domains).
- Mastery of architectural domains such as microservices, event driven systems, data pipelines, observability, DevOps/SRE practices, and cloud native technologies.
- Ability to operate as a senior level individual contributor influencing executive teams without direct authority.
- Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical concepts in clear, concise, and business relevant terms.
- Demonstrated success partnering with cross functional leaders across product, security, quality, regulatory, data science, and infrastructure.
Preferred
- Experience with FDA, EU MDR, IEC 62304, HIPAA, and related regulatory frameworks for software as part of medical systems.
- Background supporting AI/ML platform architecture, model deployment, and clinical decision support software.
- Experience designing architectures that integrate with medical devices, clinical systems, EHRs, or healthcare data standards (FHIR, HL7).
- Prior leadership in organizations scaling complex multiproduct software ecosystems.
Location:
Remote - US
Actual compensation may vary depending on job-related factors including knowledge, skills, experience, and work location.
Estimated Pay Range
$198,000.00 - $258,000.00
As a part of our core values, we ensure an inclusive workforce. We welcome and celebrate people of all backgrounds, experiences, skills, and perspectives. iRhythm Technologies, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with all applicable laws.
iRhythm provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, including those who may have any difficulty using our online system. If you need such an accommodation, you may contact us at taops@irhythmtech.com.
About iRhythm Technologies
iRhythm is a leading digital healthcare company that creates trusted solutions that detect, predict, and prevent disease. Combining wearable biosensors and cloud-based data analytics with powerful proprietary algorithms, iRhythm distills data from millions of heartbeats into clinically actionable information. Through a relentless focus on patient care, iRhythm’s vision is to deliver better data, better insights, and better health for all.
Make iRhythm your path forward. Zio, the heart monitor that changed the game.
There have been instances where individuals not associated with iRhythm have impersonated iRhythm employees pretending to be involved in the iRhythm recruiting process, or created postings for positions that do not exist. Please note that all open positions will always be shown here on the iRhythm Careers page, and all communications regarding the application, interview and hiring process will come from a @irhythmtech.com email address. Please check any communications to be sure they come directly from @irhythmtech.com email address. If you believe you have been the victim of an imposter or want to confirm that the person you are communicating with is legitimate, please contact taops@irhythmtech.com. Written offers of employment will be extended in a formal offer letter from an @irhythmtech.com email address ONLY.
For more information, see https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/01/taking-ploy-out-employment-scams and https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2020/PSA200121.
Career-defining. Life-changing.
At iRhythm, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your skills and your career while impacting the lives of people around the world. iRhythm is shaping a future where everyone, everywhere can access the best possible cardiac health solutions. Every day, we collaborate, create, and constantly reimagine what’s possible. We think big and move fast, driven by our commitment to put patients first and improve lives. We need builders like you. Curious and innovative problem solvers looking for the chance to meaningfully shape the future of cardiac health, our company, and your career.
About This Role:
The Principal Architect is a senior individual-contributor who defines, leads, and governs the software architecture vision across our device and digital ecosystem. This includes our on-device firmware, cloud services, analytics platforms, data pipelines, clinician and patient-facing applications, AI/ML enablement platforms, and operational software systems.
This leader drives architectural excellence, technology strategy, and systems coherence across R&D, product, clinical, data science, and the intersection of our products with IT. The role ensures that the on-device and off-device software ecosystem is secure, scalable, resilient, compliant, and aligned with product strategy and long-term business goals. Operating at an enterprise level, this role influences senior stakeholders across engineering, product, quality, regulatory, and security while maintaining deep technical credibility.
Key Responsibilities
Technology & Architecture Strategy
- Define the multiyear architecture strategy for all product software systems, spanning cloud, application, data, integration, and ML/AI infrastructure.
- Establish architectural principles, reference architectures, and guardrails that support reliability, performance, interoperability, maintainability, and regulatory compliance.
- Ensure holistic systems thinking across software platforms, clinical workflows, device interactions, and data flows.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and provide strategic recommendations for adoption, modernization, and platform evolution.
Architectural Leadership & Governance
- Lead cross-functional architecture forums and governance processes, ensuring consistent patterns, shared services, and disciplined decision-making across teams.
- Drive architectural clarity early in product development by guiding systems decomposition, API strategies, data models, and cloud architectures.
- Review key technical proposals, high-impact design decisions, and fundamental platform changes across R&D teams.
- Champion engineering quality standards for architecture, coding, testing, observability, and documentation.
Cross Functional Influence & Collaboration
- Partner with product management to translate business needs into scalable technical strategies and architectural roadmaps.
- Collaborate with security, privacy, regulatory, quality, and clinical teams to ensure designs meet medical device standards and software compliance requirements.
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to senior leadership, articulating architectural options, trade-offs, risks, and business impacts.
- Bridge off-device and on-device systems to ensure seamless end-to-end workflows, data flows, and system integrity.
Execution Support & Technical Leadership
- Provide architectural oversight throughout the SDLC, guiding teams during concepting, detailed design, implementation, and release.
- Drive standardization, reducing duplication and accelerating development velocity through clear architectural patterns.
- Mentor engineering leads and architects across the organization through thought leadership, coaching, and technical review.
- Lead technical investigation and resolution of complex systemic issues, spanning data, scalability, reliability, or workflow interactions.
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related field; advanced degree preferred.
- 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering or architecture, with deep expertise in large-scale distributed systems, cloud architectures, and modern application platforms.
- Proven experience architecting regulated or high reliability systems (preferably within medical, health tech, or similar domains).
- Mastery of architectural domains such as microservices, event driven systems, data pipelines, observability, DevOps/SRE practices, and cloud native technologies.
- Ability to operate as a senior level individual contributor influencing executive teams without direct authority.
- Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical concepts in clear, concise, and business relevant terms.
- Demonstrated success partnering with cross functional leaders across product, security, quality, regulatory, data science, and infrastructure.
Preferred
- Experience with FDA, EU MDR, IEC 62304, HIPAA, and related regulatory frameworks for software as part of medical systems.
- Background supporting AI/ML platform architecture, model deployment, and clinical decision support software.
- Experience designing architectures that integrate with medical devices, clinical systems, EHRs, or healthcare data standards (FHIR, HL7).
- Prior leadership in organizations scaling complex multiproduct software ecosystems.
Location:
Remote - US
Actual compensation may vary depending on job-related factors including knowledge, skills, experience, and work location.
Estimated Pay Range
$198,000.00 - $258,000.00
As a part of our core values, we ensure an inclusive workforce. We welcome and celebrate people of all backgrounds, experiences, skills, and perspectives. iRhythm Technologies, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with all applicable laws.
iRhythm provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, including those who may have any difficulty using our online system. If you need such an accommodation, you may contact us at taops@irhythmtech.com.
About iRhythm Technologies
iRhythm is a leading digital healthcare company that creates trusted solutions that detect, predict, and prevent disease. Combining wearable biosensors and cloud-based data analytics with powerful proprietary algorithms, iRhythm distills data from millions of heartbeats into clinically actionable information. Through a relentless focus on patient care, iRhythm’s vision is to deliver better data, better insights, and better health for all.
Make iRhythm your path forward. Zio, the heart monitor that changed the game.
There have been instances where individuals not associated with iRhythm have impersonated iRhythm employees pretending to be involved in the iRhythm recruiting process, or created postings for positions that do not exist. Please note that all open positions will always be shown here on the iRhythm Careers page, and all communications regarding the application, interview and hiring process will come from a @irhythmtech.com email address. Please check any communications to be sure they come directly from @irhythmtech.com email address. If you believe you have been the victim of an imposter or want to confirm that the person you are communicating with is legitimate, please contact taops@irhythmtech.com. Written offers of employment will be extended in a formal offer letter from an @irhythmtech.com email address ONLY.
For more information, see https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/01/taking-ploy-out-employment-scams and https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2020/PSA200121.
See All 56+ Principal System Architect Jobs
Jump back to the full list of openings and apply to any principal system architect role that fits.
Find JobsPrincipal System Architect Job Market
A snapshot from current openings nationwide, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
- Cadence Design Systems4
- Ayar Labs3
- Micron Idaho Semiconductor Manufacturing (Triton)3
- Monolithic Power Systems3
- NVIDIA3
Top Industries Hiring
- Electronics & Hardware27
- Technology & Software19
- Manufacturing6
- Consulting & Professional Services5
- Consumer Goods2
What Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in principal system architect jobs.
- 10 or more years of experience designing large-scale distributed systems or enterprise software architecture
- Deep expertise in cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud and their managed services
- Proficiency in architecture frameworks and modeling tools like ArchiMate, C4, or similar standards
- Demonstrated ability to define and enforce architecture standards across multiple engineering teams
- Experience with microservices, event-driven design, API governance, and service mesh technologies
- Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related technical field
Tips for Your Principal System Architect Job Search
Lead with architectural decision records
Hiring panels for principal system architect roles want evidence of decisions you owned end-to-end. List two or three ADRs on your resume with the tradeoffs you evaluated, not just the outcome. That separates you from candidates who list tools without context.
Apply early to roles that fit
Migrate Mate lists principal system architect openings from across the United States in one place, so you can find roles that match and apply directly to each listing.
Target job descriptions by scope level
Principal roles vary widely: some own a single critical subsystem, others set architecture standards across a whole engineering org. Read the reporting lines and team size in each description carefully so you apply where your actual scope of experience is a match.
Quantify system scale on your resume
Describe the systems you designed in concrete terms: throughput, latency targets, number of dependent services, or years the design stayed in production. Reviewers at this level scan for scale signals before reading anything else.
Prepare a whiteboard session on a past design
Most principal system architect interviews include a live design exercise. Practice walking through a real system you built, including the constraints that shaped your choices and what you would change now. Interviewers probe that reflective layer heavily.
Negotiate total compensation across its components
Offers at this level typically bundle base, equity vesting schedules, and signing bonuses with different cliff structures. Ask for the full compensation breakdown in writing before you respond, so you can evaluate each component on its own terms.
Principal System Architect Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies are hiring the most principal system architects?
The companies hiring the most principal system architects right now include Cadence Design Systems, Ayar Labs, and Micron Idaho Semiconductor Manufacturing (Triton), with the largest share of openings in California, Texas, and Massachusetts, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. Demand is concentrated in organizations running large cloud migrations or building new platform layers at scale.
How many principal system architect jobs are remote?
About 27% of principal system architect openings are fully remote or hybrid as of June 2026, reflecting the role's heavy reliance on documentation, async design review, and collaborative tooling rather than on-site presence. Platform architecture and cloud infrastructure roles tend to have the highest share of remote availability, while embedded and hardware-adjacent specializations more often require on-site work.
How do you become a principal system architect?
The typical path runs through several years as a senior or staff engineer where you own the design of a significant subsystem, then transitions into cross-team architecture ownership. Build a portfolio of architectural decision records, lead at least one major migration or greenfield platform initiative, and develop the ability to communicate design tradeoffs clearly to both engineering and non-technical stakeholders. Certifications in major cloud platforms strengthen your candidacy, though demonstrated system ownership carries more weight.
Can you get hired as a principal system architect without prior experience at that title?
Yes, especially if you can show you functioned at that scope in a lower title. Many engineers reach principal-level responsibilities at companies that don't use that title formally. Describe the systems you owned, the teams you influenced, and the architecture decisions you made without close supervision. A strong take-home design exercise or system design interview can also compensate for a title mismatch when your judgment in the room clearly aligns with the level.
What does the principal system architect interview process look like?
The process typically includes a recruiter screen, a technical phone interview focused on past system design work, a live or take-home architecture design exercise, a panel round with engineering leads who probe tradeoffs and failure modes, and a final conversation with a hiring manager or VP about cross-team influence and strategic direction. Some organizations add a presentation where you walk through a system you designed from scratch, including constraints and revisions.
Where can I find and apply to principal system architect jobs?
You can find and apply to principal system architect jobs on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings from across the United States in one place. Find roles that match your background and apply directly to each listing from the page.
See All 56+ Principal System Architect Jobs
Jump back to the full list of openings and apply to any principal system architect role that fits.
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