Principal Architect Visa Sponsorship Jobs in Washington
Principal architect roles in Washington draw sponsorship from major technology and aerospace employers including Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing, concentrated in the Seattle metro, Redmond, and Bellevue. The state's dense concentration of large-scale engineering organizations means active visa filing histories across H-1B visa, TN visa, and employment-based green card pathways for senior design and architecture professionals.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG, we’re driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future.
Vivint Smart Home, an NRG owned company, is a leading smart home company in the United States, dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home, no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter, safer and more sustainable homes.
SUMMARY
Vivint Smart Home is hiring a Principal Solutions Architect to own the holistic technical view of how our devices get set up and how they stay connected. This role is responsible for understanding our end-to-end architecture across panel firmware, cloud services, mobile applications, and the radios and home networks in between, and for translating that understanding into a concrete set of architectural changes that make installations faster and more reliable. Setup and connectivity are the two moments that most shape install time, product quality, and long-term customer trust. This leader will hold the system-level picture that no single engineering team owns today and use it to drive change across all of them.
You will operate across hardware, embedded, platform, cloud, and mobile engineering, partnering closely with product, design, QA, data, and field operations. You will also be our technical face to the outside: evaluating and integrating third-party services such as network telemetry, diagnostics, and observability, and working directly with device manufacturers so that every new device we build fits cleanly into our ecosystem from the first design review. This is a role for a deeply technical leader who influences through architecture and evidence rather than authority, and who is willing to own the seams between teams that nobody else owns.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
- Build and maintain the holistic architectural picture of setup and device connectivity across panel firmware, cloud services, mobile applications, and device radios, including a clear view of where product behavior lives today and where it should live.
- Partner with engineering leadership to propose, sequence, and socialize the architectural changes that reduce install time and improve install quality.
- Define the architecture for device health telemetry and self-healing, so that devices continuously report connectivity health such as signal strength, disconnects, reconnect time, and retry behavior, and recover from common home network events without a technician or a customer call.
- Lead build-versus-buy evaluations for third-party services across networking, diagnostics, and observability, then own the technical integration of what we buy into our platform, data model, and security and privacy posture.
- Work directly with device makers, ODMs, and silicon partners during new product development to ensure that commissioning and operating protocols, provisioning flows, update mechanisms, and telemetry hooks integrate well within our product ecosystem.
- Write the architecture evaluations, reference designs, and decision records that give product and engineering a shared basis for tradeoffs across protocols, performance, diagnostics, and recovery.
- Diagnose real-world failure patterns using field, telemetry, and customer support data, and turn them into prioritized architectural work with a clear line to the metric each change is expected to move.
- Serve as a technical advisor to product leadership on roadmap and strategy, including protocol strategy by device category and the architecture required for the next generation of hardware.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:
- 10+ years in software or systems engineering, including significant time as an architect or technical lead on distributed systems that include physical devices.
- Deep, hands-on understanding of connected device architecture, including device provisioning and commissioning, cloud-to-device connectivity, over-the-air firmware update, and fleet telemetry at scale.
- Working knowledge of home networking realities and connectivity protocols, including Wi-Fi and consumer mesh systems, band steering, multicast and mDNS behavior, BLE, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, and cellular backhaul.
- Experience evaluating, selecting, and integrating third-party platforms and services, and comfort owning the technical side of a vendor relationship through to production.
- Direct experience working with hardware manufacturers, ODMs, or silicon vendors on new product development, including reviewing requirements documents and influencing design decisions early enough to matter.
- Proven ability to influence without authority across embedded, cloud, mobile, and hardware organizations, and to build alignment on a multi-year architectural direction.
- Exceptional written communication, with the ability to turn a tangled system into a document that both an executive and a firmware engineer find useful.
- Analytical rigor with reliability and observability data, including defining the metrics that prove an architectural change actually worked.
JOB FUNCTIONS:
Position requires in-office presence in Seattle, WA on a hybrid schedule for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with a work from home day on Friday. The position will start remote and then will move into the hybrid schedule.
WORKING AT VIVINT:
Learn about the Vivint Culture and why it’s a great place to grow your career! Here are some highlighted perks you should ask us about:
- Free daily lunch and drinks on site
- Paid holidays and flexible paid time away
- Employee/Friends/Family Discounts
- Onsite health clinic, gym, gaming tables
- Medical/dental/vision/life coverage & 24/7 Medical Hotline
- 401(k) + Employer Match
- Employee Resource Groups
- Quarterly Innovation Weeks
The base salary range for this position is: $210,000 - $245,000*
*The base salary range above represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of the total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include annual bonus, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition the position may be eligible to participate in the benefits program which include, but are not limited to, medical, vision, dental, 401K, and flexible spending accounts.
NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Protected Veteran Status/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.
EEO is the Law Poster (The poster can be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf)
Official description on file with Talent.
We support the use of AI tools to help you prepare for your interview (e.g., practicing responses, researching the role, or refining your resume). However, during interviews and assessments, we expect responses to reflect your own thinking, experience, and communication. Use of AI to generate or read answers in real time, complete assessments, or misrepresent your qualifications is not permitted and may impact your candidacy.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG, we’re driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future.
Vivint Smart Home, an NRG owned company, is a leading smart home company in the United States, dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home, no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter, safer and more sustainable homes.
SUMMARY
Vivint Smart Home is hiring a Principal Solutions Architect to own the holistic technical view of how our devices get set up and how they stay connected. This role is responsible for understanding our end-to-end architecture across panel firmware, cloud services, mobile applications, and the radios and home networks in between, and for translating that understanding into a concrete set of architectural changes that make installations faster and more reliable. Setup and connectivity are the two moments that most shape install time, product quality, and long-term customer trust. This leader will hold the system-level picture that no single engineering team owns today and use it to drive change across all of them.
You will operate across hardware, embedded, platform, cloud, and mobile engineering, partnering closely with product, design, QA, data, and field operations. You will also be our technical face to the outside: evaluating and integrating third-party services such as network telemetry, diagnostics, and observability, and working directly with device manufacturers so that every new device we build fits cleanly into our ecosystem from the first design review. This is a role for a deeply technical leader who influences through architecture and evidence rather than authority, and who is willing to own the seams between teams that nobody else owns.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
- Build and maintain the holistic architectural picture of setup and device connectivity across panel firmware, cloud services, mobile applications, and device radios, including a clear view of where product behavior lives today and where it should live.
- Partner with engineering leadership to propose, sequence, and socialize the architectural changes that reduce install time and improve install quality.
- Define the architecture for device health telemetry and self-healing, so that devices continuously report connectivity health such as signal strength, disconnects, reconnect time, and retry behavior, and recover from common home network events without a technician or a customer call.
- Lead build-versus-buy evaluations for third-party services across networking, diagnostics, and observability, then own the technical integration of what we buy into our platform, data model, and security and privacy posture.
- Work directly with device makers, ODMs, and silicon partners during new product development to ensure that commissioning and operating protocols, provisioning flows, update mechanisms, and telemetry hooks integrate well within our product ecosystem.
- Write the architecture evaluations, reference designs, and decision records that give product and engineering a shared basis for tradeoffs across protocols, performance, diagnostics, and recovery.
- Diagnose real-world failure patterns using field, telemetry, and customer support data, and turn them into prioritized architectural work with a clear line to the metric each change is expected to move.
- Serve as a technical advisor to product leadership on roadmap and strategy, including protocol strategy by device category and the architecture required for the next generation of hardware.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:
- 10+ years in software or systems engineering, including significant time as an architect or technical lead on distributed systems that include physical devices.
- Deep, hands-on understanding of connected device architecture, including device provisioning and commissioning, cloud-to-device connectivity, over-the-air firmware update, and fleet telemetry at scale.
- Working knowledge of home networking realities and connectivity protocols, including Wi-Fi and consumer mesh systems, band steering, multicast and mDNS behavior, BLE, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, and cellular backhaul.
- Experience evaluating, selecting, and integrating third-party platforms and services, and comfort owning the technical side of a vendor relationship through to production.
- Direct experience working with hardware manufacturers, ODMs, or silicon vendors on new product development, including reviewing requirements documents and influencing design decisions early enough to matter.
- Proven ability to influence without authority across embedded, cloud, mobile, and hardware organizations, and to build alignment on a multi-year architectural direction.
- Exceptional written communication, with the ability to turn a tangled system into a document that both an executive and a firmware engineer find useful.
- Analytical rigor with reliability and observability data, including defining the metrics that prove an architectural change actually worked.
JOB FUNCTIONS:
Position requires in-office presence in Seattle, WA on a hybrid schedule for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with a work from home day on Friday. The position will start remote and then will move into the hybrid schedule.
WORKING AT VIVINT:
Learn about the Vivint Culture and why it’s a great place to grow your career! Here are some highlighted perks you should ask us about:
- Free daily lunch and drinks on site
- Paid holidays and flexible paid time away
- Employee/Friends/Family Discounts
- Onsite health clinic, gym, gaming tables
- Medical/dental/vision/life coverage & 24/7 Medical Hotline
- 401(k) + Employer Match
- Employee Resource Groups
- Quarterly Innovation Weeks
The base salary range for this position is: $210,000 - $245,000*
*The base salary range above represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of the total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include annual bonus, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition the position may be eligible to participate in the benefits program which include, but are not limited to, medical, vision, dental, 401K, and flexible spending accounts.
NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Protected Veteran Status/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.
EEO is the Law Poster (The poster can be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf)
Official description on file with Talent.
We support the use of AI tools to help you prepare for your interview (e.g., practicing responses, researching the role, or refining your resume). However, during interviews and assessments, we expect responses to reflect your own thinking, experience, and communication. Use of AI to generate or read answers in real time, complete assessments, or misrepresent your qualifications is not permitted and may impact your candidacy.
Principal Architect Job Roles in Washington
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Search Principal Architect Jobs in WashingtonPrincipal Architect Jobs in Washington: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies in Washington sponsor visas for principal architects?
Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing are among the most active sponsors for principal architect roles in Washington, filing consistently for senior technical and design positions. Architecture and engineering consultancies such as NBBJ and LMN Architects, both headquartered in Seattle, also have established sponsorship track records. Technology infrastructure companies concentrated in the greater Seattle and Eastside corridor regularly file Labor Condition Applications for senior architecture and systems design roles.
What visa types realistically apply to principal architect roles in Washington?
The H-1B is the primary path for most international principal architects, as the role qualifies as a specialty occupation requiring a directly related bachelor's degree or higher. Canadian and Mexican nationals may qualify for TN status under the USMCA Architect category, provided they hold the required professional degree or license. EB-2 and EB-3 employment-based green cards are available for longer-term sponsorship, typically requiring PERM labor certification filed by the employer.
How to find principal architect visa sponsorship jobs in Washington?
Migrate Mate lists Washington employers with verified sponsorship filing histories for principal architect roles, letting you focus on companies already familiar with the process. Because Seattle and the Eastside tech corridor drive much of the demand, filtering for the greater Seattle metropolitan area on Migrate Mate surfaces the highest concentration of active openings. Reviewing employer LCA filing histories on the platform helps confirm which organizations have sponsored comparable senior architecture positions recently.
Which cities in Washington have the most principal architect sponsorship jobs?
Seattle holds the largest share of principal architect sponsorship activity in Washington, driven by its concentration of major technology companies and established architecture firms. Redmond and Bellevue, home to Microsoft and a cluster of enterprise technology employers, follow closely. Smaller but active markets include Kirkland and Bothell, where mid-size technology and aerospace companies maintain engineering headcount. Outside the Seattle metro, Spokane has a smaller but growing design and construction sector.
Are there state-specific factors that affect principal architect sponsorship in Washington?
Washington's absence of a state income tax can influence compensation structuring, though employers still meet federal prevailing wage obligations for sponsored roles. The University of Washington and Washington State University supply graduate pipelines in architecture and engineering, and many local employers have existing familiarity with OPT and STEM OPT transitions into full sponsorship. Washington's strong aerospace sector through Boeing adds a category of principal architect demand outside the more visible technology industry, particularly for systems and infrastructure architecture roles.
What is the prevailing wage for sponsored principal architect jobs in Washington?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.