Senior Software Architect

As a Senior Software Architect, you will have:

• The responsibility to drive projects forward, mentor team members, and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives.
• Be a key player in the design of one of the most sophisticated, complex systems, employing state-of-the-art technology.
• Opportunities for professional development and career advancement.
• Work on cutting-edge technologies and innovative projects.
• A collaborative and inclusive work environment where your contributions are valued.
  

Our Group Responsible for the two leading Sophisticated Scanning Electrons Microscopes (SEM).

• Build and maintain the software that autonomically controls and operates a state of the art , nano resolution Scanning Electrons Microscope Systems.
• Composed from strong individuals, empowered, service minded SW engineers.
• Driven from business value, enable & partner with products teams.

Outcomes (what success looks like)

• SEM evolves faster without accumulating architectural debt or quality regressions from AI-generated changes.
• Architectural decisions are explicit, consistently applied, and reduce cross-team thrash.
• Validation and guardrails (standards, templates, fitness functions) prevent predictable failure modes early.
• Platforms and shared patterns measurably increase team velocity, reliability, and developer experience.
• Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues as they arise.

Key responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture for one or more SEM domains (core services, data flows, integrations, runtime/deployment, user workflows).
• Act as a Strategic Operator: design and govern an ecosystem of patterns/services that multiple teams (and AI agents) can implement reliably.
• Establish architectural governance: ADR practices, design reviews, architectural review cadence, and decision quality standards.
• Define AI-ready architecture patterns: reference architectures, templates, “golden paths,” and anti-patterns for agentic development.
• Serve as Architectural Guardian: define quality attributes (security, performance, scalability, maintainability, operability) and enforce them through review and automation.
• Create architectural validation frameworks (automated checks / fitness functions) to catch drift, security issues, and design violations.
• Lead decomposition of strategic initiatives into roadmap milestones and delegatable work packages for teams and AI.
• Own integration/compatibility strategy across components and versions; reduce cross-team integration friction.
• Drive continuous improvement: DevX initiatives, technical debt portfolio management, platform modernization, and operational excellence.
• Mentor engineers/architects; grow learning culture via reviews, workshops, and architecture community practices.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 15+ years software engineering experience with 8+ years in explicit architecture/technical leadership roles.
• Mastery of distributed systems and system design tradeoffs (consistency, resiliency, coupling/cohesion, capacity planning).
• Strong architectural communication: can explain tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders with clear rationale.
• Evidence of platform thinking (standards, shared services, frameworks) that enabled multiple teams.
• Experience with architectural documentation and governance (ADRs, design reviews, roadmaps, standards).
• Security/quality ownership mindset; experience embedding NFRs into design and delivery workflows.
• Strong proficiency in Java / Python programming languages.
• Hands-on fluency with modern engineering practices (CI/CD, automated testing strategy, code quality, secure SDLC).

Preferred qualifications (SEM-relevant)

• Experience with hardware-integrated / industrial / manufacturing-adjacent software experience.
• Experience designing systems used by 5+ teams (or organization-wide platforms).
• Proven architectural automation (linters, policy-as-code, compliance checks, fitness functions) integrated into CI/CD.
• Experience with multiple architectural styles (microservices, event-driven, serverless, modular monolith) and migration strategies (strangler, branch-by-abstraction).
• Strong observability and production excellence background (postmortems leading to architectural change, chaos/perf testing).
• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.

Core competencies (how you work)

• Systems thinking and pragmatic tradeoffs (speed, cost, risk, quality).
• Multiplier mindset: raises capability through patterns, guardrails, and mentoring (not heroics).
• Pragmatic vision: balances long-term architecture with near-term delivery.
• Cross-team orchestration: aligns 5–10 teams through clear boundaries, contracts, and decision-making.
• Continuous improvement: systematically reduces friction and risk across the lifecycle.

Working relationships

• Partners with engineering managers, product management, systems/hardware, quality/security, and peer architects.
• Leads architecture forums (reviews, guild/community of practice) as a coaching and alignment mechanism.