Senior IT Architect Jobs in California
Senior IT Architect jobs in California are among the most active in the country, with steady demand concentrated in technology, enterprise software, financial services, and defense contracting at every level from associate architect through principal and distinguished architect. The largest hiring centers are San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego, where companies like Salesforce, Northrop Grumman, and Wells Fargo have long maintained substantial architecture teams. The most in-demand specializations are cloud platform architecture, enterprise integration, and cybersecurity architecture. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
Find Senior IT Architect JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 16+ Senior IT Architect jobs
Work Schedule
Standard (Mon-Fri)
Environmental Conditions
Office
Job Description
As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you'll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world's toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.
DESCRIPTION:
Join our collaborative team at Thermo Fisher Scientific as a Sr Staff IT Architect, specializing in HR AI solutions. You'll help drive innovation in HR technology solutions that evolve the HR services experience for our users. In this role, you'll focus on the design and architecture of our enterprise HR AI chatbot ('HiRo') and implement AI-driven HR service delivery capabilities.
How you will make an impact:
- Design and implement enterprise-wide solutions, with a focus on HR AI.
- Leverage ServiceNow (including NowAssist) capabilities as well as other AI tools and capabilities (ChatGPTe, Flowise, etc.)
- Lead the design of AI-driven HR chatbot and AI agent use cases
- Collaborate with HR stakeholders to translate requirements into robust architectural designs
- Perform technical analysis and present architecture decisions/recommendations to key stakeholders
- Define integration patterns across systems, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and protocols
- Monitor and improve AI performance and adoption in HR service delivery
- Contribute to AI strategy and governance within the HR technology ecosystem
What you will do:
Architecture
- Design AI solutions using ServiceNow and other AI platforms (ChatGPTe, Flowise, etc.)
- Work directly with HR stakeholders to refine use cases, translating ambiguous needs into clear, scalable designs
- Define how the HR chatbot and AI agents behave—how they answer questions, trigger transactions, and interact with systems like Workday and ChatGPTe
- Design how LLMs connect to APIs, workflows, and data sources—ensuring solutions are practical, secure, and maintainable
- Attend requirements gathering sessions with business stakeholders
- Design complex chatbot flows and agentic AI use cases
- Define integrations and architecture for HR AI solutions (APIs, MCP)
AI Strategy and Guidance
- Make product or technology recommendations for AI solutions, evaluating and selecting appropriate tools and platforms to meet business needs
- Analyze and model technical solutioning options, considering scale, security, UX, business value and cost implications
- Provide technical assessments, highlighting capabilities, limitations, and trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders
- Research industry best practices for AI technologies in HR service delivery
- Work with platform vendor to provide usage feedback and request product changes.
- Knowledge share and collaborate with other technical teams to implement architectural standards across the organization
REQUIREMENTS
- Advanced Degree plus 6 years of experience, or Bachelor's Degree plus 8 years of experience in enterprise architecture with progressive technical leadership responsibilities
- Preferred Fields of Study: Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology or related field
- Experience with OpenAI products is highly advantageous (e.g., AgentKit, Agent Builder, OpenAI API, ChatKit, MCP Servers)
AI Architecture & Development:
- Experience designing LLM-based solutions in enterprise environments
- Experience with building AI agents and multi-agent orchestration (MCP experience is a plus)
- Strong skills in prompt engineering, system instruction design, and orchestration
- Familiarity with multiple AI development platforms
- Knowledge of RAG including chunking, embeddings, reranking, and retrieval strategies
- Understanding of hallucination mitigation, grounding, citations, and knowledge freshness
- Ability to evaluate AI outputs and define performance metrics
- Knowledge of AI governance, risk, and data privacy
ServiceNow AI & Platform Requirements:
- Experience with building ServiceNow Virtual Agent topics with Now Assist
- Familiarity with AI Agent Studio and AI-powered ServiceNow capabilities
- Experience integrating ServiceNow with external AI platforms (OpenAI, AWS, etc.)
- Strong understanding of Flow Designer, IntegrationHub, Scripted REST APIs, and outbound integrations
- Experience designing HRSD solutions (Case Management, Knowledge, Employee Center) is a plus
Additional Skills:
- Deep expertise in cloud architecture, cybersecurity, data/analytics, automation, and network infrastructure
- Proven experience designing and implementing large-scale enterprise solutions
- Strong knowledge of modern architectural patterns, frameworks and best practices
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and associated services
- Expertise in infrastructure as code, automation, and DevOps practices
- Strong understanding of security principles and compliance requirements
- Strong stakeholder management and executive communication abilities
- Demonstrated ability to guide and influence through collaboration
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with attention to detail
- Experience with Agile methodologies and project delivery frameworks
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences
Compensation and Benefits
The salary range estimated for this position based in Pennsylvania is $130,000.00–$185,000.00. This position may also be eligible to receive a variable annual bonus based on company, team, and/or individual performance results in accordance with company policy. We offer a comprehensive Total Rewards package that our U.S. colleagues and their families can count on, which includes:
- A choice of national medical and dental plans, and a national vision plan, including health incentive programs
- Employee assistance and family support programs, including commuter benefits and tuition reimbursement
- At least 120 hours paid time off (PTO), 10 paid holidays annually, paid parental leave (3 weeks for bonding and 8 weeks for caregiver leave), accident and life insurance, and short- and long-term disability in accordance with company policy
- Retirement and savings programs, such as our competitive 401(k) U.S. retirement savings plan
- Employees’ Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) offers eligible colleagues the opportunity to purchase company stock at a discount
For more information on our benefits, please visit: https://jobs.thermofisher.com/global/en/total-rewards
Work Schedule
Standard (Mon-Fri)
Environmental Conditions
Office
Job Description
As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you'll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world's toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.
DESCRIPTION:
Join our collaborative team at Thermo Fisher Scientific as a Sr Staff IT Architect, specializing in HR AI solutions. You'll help drive innovation in HR technology solutions that evolve the HR services experience for our users. In this role, you'll focus on the design and architecture of our enterprise HR AI chatbot ('HiRo') and implement AI-driven HR service delivery capabilities.
How you will make an impact:
- Design and implement enterprise-wide solutions, with a focus on HR AI.
- Leverage ServiceNow (including NowAssist) capabilities as well as other AI tools and capabilities (ChatGPTe, Flowise, etc.)
- Lead the design of AI-driven HR chatbot and AI agent use cases
- Collaborate with HR stakeholders to translate requirements into robust architectural designs
- Perform technical analysis and present architecture decisions/recommendations to key stakeholders
- Define integration patterns across systems, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and protocols
- Monitor and improve AI performance and adoption in HR service delivery
- Contribute to AI strategy and governance within the HR technology ecosystem
What you will do:
Architecture
- Design AI solutions using ServiceNow and other AI platforms (ChatGPTe, Flowise, etc.)
- Work directly with HR stakeholders to refine use cases, translating ambiguous needs into clear, scalable designs
- Define how the HR chatbot and AI agents behave—how they answer questions, trigger transactions, and interact with systems like Workday and ChatGPTe
- Design how LLMs connect to APIs, workflows, and data sources—ensuring solutions are practical, secure, and maintainable
- Attend requirements gathering sessions with business stakeholders
- Design complex chatbot flows and agentic AI use cases
- Define integrations and architecture for HR AI solutions (APIs, MCP)
AI Strategy and Guidance
- Make product or technology recommendations for AI solutions, evaluating and selecting appropriate tools and platforms to meet business needs
- Analyze and model technical solutioning options, considering scale, security, UX, business value and cost implications
- Provide technical assessments, highlighting capabilities, limitations, and trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders
- Research industry best practices for AI technologies in HR service delivery
- Work with platform vendor to provide usage feedback and request product changes.
- Knowledge share and collaborate with other technical teams to implement architectural standards across the organization
REQUIREMENTS
- Advanced Degree plus 6 years of experience, or Bachelor's Degree plus 8 years of experience in enterprise architecture with progressive technical leadership responsibilities
- Preferred Fields of Study: Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology or related field
- Experience with OpenAI products is highly advantageous (e.g., AgentKit, Agent Builder, OpenAI API, ChatKit, MCP Servers)
AI Architecture & Development:
- Experience designing LLM-based solutions in enterprise environments
- Experience with building AI agents and multi-agent orchestration (MCP experience is a plus)
- Strong skills in prompt engineering, system instruction design, and orchestration
- Familiarity with multiple AI development platforms
- Knowledge of RAG including chunking, embeddings, reranking, and retrieval strategies
- Understanding of hallucination mitigation, grounding, citations, and knowledge freshness
- Ability to evaluate AI outputs and define performance metrics
- Knowledge of AI governance, risk, and data privacy
ServiceNow AI & Platform Requirements:
- Experience with building ServiceNow Virtual Agent topics with Now Assist
- Familiarity with AI Agent Studio and AI-powered ServiceNow capabilities
- Experience integrating ServiceNow with external AI platforms (OpenAI, AWS, etc.)
- Strong understanding of Flow Designer, IntegrationHub, Scripted REST APIs, and outbound integrations
- Experience designing HRSD solutions (Case Management, Knowledge, Employee Center) is a plus
Additional Skills:
- Deep expertise in cloud architecture, cybersecurity, data/analytics, automation, and network infrastructure
- Proven experience designing and implementing large-scale enterprise solutions
- Strong knowledge of modern architectural patterns, frameworks and best practices
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and associated services
- Expertise in infrastructure as code, automation, and DevOps practices
- Strong understanding of security principles and compliance requirements
- Strong stakeholder management and executive communication abilities
- Demonstrated ability to guide and influence through collaboration
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with attention to detail
- Experience with Agile methodologies and project delivery frameworks
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences
Compensation and Benefits
The salary range estimated for this position based in Pennsylvania is $130,000.00–$185,000.00. This position may also be eligible to receive a variable annual bonus based on company, team, and/or individual performance results in accordance with company policy. We offer a comprehensive Total Rewards package that our U.S. colleagues and their families can count on, which includes:
- A choice of national medical and dental plans, and a national vision plan, including health incentive programs
- Employee assistance and family support programs, including commuter benefits and tuition reimbursement
- At least 120 hours paid time off (PTO), 10 paid holidays annually, paid parental leave (3 weeks for bonding and 8 weeks for caregiver leave), accident and life insurance, and short- and long-term disability in accordance with company policy
- Retirement and savings programs, such as our competitive 401(k) U.S. retirement savings plan
- Employees’ Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) offers eligible colleagues the opportunity to purchase company stock at a discount
For more information on our benefits, please visit: https://jobs.thermofisher.com/global/en/total-rewards
See All 16 Senior IT Architect Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Senior IT Architect JobsSenior IT Architect Jobs by City in California
Where California roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Senior IT Architect Job Market in California
A snapshot from current California openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
- NVIDIA2
- Ahead1
- Airwallex1
- Dexcom1
- First American1
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software6
- Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals2
- Artificial Intelligence1
- Construction & Real Estate1
- Consulting & Professional Services1
What California Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in senior IT architect jobs across California.
- Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, information systems, or a related engineering field
- Ten or more years of progressive IT experience including enterprise architecture design and governance
- Proficiency with major cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
- Hands-on experience with enterprise architecture frameworks including TOGAF or Zachman
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional technical teams and align IT strategy with business goals
- Active or eligible-to-obtain security clearance preferred for California defense and government contractors
Senior IT Architect Jobs in California: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a senior it architect in California?
The most direct path is building deep technical experience in IT infrastructure or software engineering, then progressing into architecture roles through increasing scope and leadership. California employers typically require a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science or information systems. Earning a TOGAF certification through The Open Group is widely recognized by California enterprise employers as the baseline architecture credential. Large California tech firms and defense contractors often promote internally from senior engineer or solutions engineer roles into architecture tracks.
How much do senior IT architects make in California?
Senior IT architects in California earn a median of about $158,870 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $97,070 for the lowest 10% to over $224,930 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire senior it architects in California?
Employers hiring senior it architects in California right now include NVIDIA, Ahead, and Airwallex, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. California's concentration of Fortune 500 headquarters, major defense contractors, and global technology companies means hiring is consistent across multiple metropolitan areas and sectors year-round.
Which California cities have the most senior it architect jobs?
San Francisco, Redwood City, and Santa Clara have the most senior it architect openings in California. The Bay Area leads because of its density of technology headquarters and enterprise software companies, while Los Angeles draws demand from media, entertainment, and financial services firms, and San Diego's concentration of defense contractors and biotech companies supports consistent architecture hiring in that region.
Are there remote senior it architect jobs in California?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 38% of senior it architect openings tied to California are remote or hybrid as of June 2026, reflecting how much of the role centers on design, documentation, and stakeholder meetings rather than hands-on physical infrastructure. Strategy, solution design, and governance work tends to be the most remote-friendly, while roles requiring proximity to data centers or classified facilities remain primarily on-site.
How can I get hired as a senior it architect in California with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry point is securing a junior infrastructure, cloud engineering, or systems analyst role and building toward architecture credentials. California employers such as large technology companies, health systems, and state government agencies regularly hire associate or junior architect candidates who hold a TOGAF foundation certificate or a cloud certification from AWS or Microsoft. Lateral moves from senior systems administrator, DevOps engineer, or solutions engineer positions are common. University of California and California State University graduates who focus on enterprise systems coursework find these lateral paths more accessible through campus recruiting programs.
Where can I find and apply to senior it architect jobs in California?
You can find and apply to senior it architect jobs in California on Migrate Mate, which lists current California openings. Find roles that fit your experience and location and apply directly to each one.
See All 16 Senior IT Architect Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Senior IT Architect Jobs