Principal Engineering Architect

Position Summary

We are seeking a Principal Engineering Architect to serve as a high-impact technical leader within the Engineering team. This role is ideal for an experienced engineering professional who combines hands-on embedded systems expertise with broad systems architecture knowledge, hardware/software integration experience, software and data engineering awareness, and cross-functional technical leadership.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Define and guide end-to-end system architecture across embedded devices, hardware, application software, communication layers, gateways, backend services, APIs, data flows, diagnostics, and operational monitoring to deliver scalable, maintainable, and reliable product platforms.
• Design and document system architectures, workflows, interface contracts, message and data flows, boot processes, diagnostics, fault handling, recovery strategies, and backend data interactions.
• Architect over-the-air (OTA) update strategies, including versioning, validation, staged deployment, integrity verification, rollback, fallback, safe recovery, and field-service considerations.
• Develop, review, and guide embedded code, APIs, integration patterns, and technical implementations where hands-on validation is needed, applying sound software engineering principles and scalable design practices.
• Architect and enhance embedded systems for real-time environments using RTOS concepts, state machines, task scheduling, event-driven design, and timing-aware architecture.
• Establish architectural standards, engineering best practices, and technical design principles while providing leadership through design reviews, code reviews, mentoring, debugging support, and cross-functional technical guidance.
• Collaborate with Hardware, Firmware, Software, Data Engineering, Backend/Cloud, Test, Product Engineering, and Operations teams to ensure system interoperability, reliable integration, and alignment across the product lifecycle.
• Recommend and implement architectural improvements across hardware, firmware, gateways, backend services, data handling, and system interactions to improve reliability, scalability, maintainability, serviceability, and overall product performance.
• Improve engineering efficiency through architecture enhancements, test automation, simulation and emulation strategies, diagnostics tooling, release readiness criteria, and streamlined development, testing, UAT, and deployment processes.
• Support hardware/software integration, system-level troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and defect resolution through the use of schematics, datasheets, telemetry, communication traces, laboratory equipment, and cross-functional investigation techniques.
• Identify and address technical debt, architectural risks, performance constraints, hardware and software dependencies, and scalability challenges while driving continuous improvement across engineering disciplines.
• Partner with Test and Validation teams to define system-level test strategies, evaluate product behavior, support environmental testing, and verify product reliability prior to release.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools to improve software development, debugging, documentation, architecture research, test planning, and overall engineering productivity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Embedded Systems or a related field required.
• A minimum of 8 years of progressive experience in embedded systems or embedded software development required.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience leading embedded software architecture, major feature design, platform design, or end-to-end embedded systems initiatives required.
• Advanced proficiency in embedded C/C++ programming required.
• Strong experience developing firmware within RTOS environments and real-time systems required.
• Demonstrated expertise in hardware/software integration and low-level debugging required.
• Proven ability to independently own embedded systems components from concept through production required.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and communication skills required.
• Experience working with microcontroller platforms such as Renesas, MSP430, Nordic, or similar preferred.
• Experience implementing communication protocols including I2C, SPI, UART, USB, and Bluetooth preferred.
• Experience with USB and Bluetooth stacks as well as automotive protocols such as OBD II preferred.
• Knowledge of cellular communication technologies such as GSM, LTE, CDMA, and RS485 preferred.
• Familiarity with Agile development methodologies and tools such as JIRA and SVN preferred.
• Exposure to higher-level languages such as Python, Java, or C# for tooling, test automation, or system integration preferred.
• Experience in regulated, safety-sensitive, or hardware-centric product environments preferred.

Physical Demands & Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. While performing the duties of this position, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to use hands or fingers to handle, or feel objects, tools or controls. The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; reach with hands and arms; climb or balance; and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, and the ability to adjust focus. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.