Principal Architect

Job description:

The Principal Architect is a senior technology leader within NETS Solutions responsible for driving architecture governance, solution excellence, engineering standards, technology innovation, and engineering effectiveness.

The role provides strategic and hands-on architectural leadership for business-critical initiatives, establishes and governs architecture standards and reference patterns, and ensures that technology solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, maintainable, and aligned with business objectives. The Principal Architect serves as a trusted advisor to business and technology stakeholders while fostering a culture of engineering excellence, continuous learning, and modern software engineering practices.

A key focus of this role is to advance engineering productivity and software quality through the adoption of AI-assisted development practices, specification-driven development methodologies, and modern engineering platforms.

Key Outcomes

Success in this role will be demonstrated through the following outcomes:

1. Engineering Productivity & Modern Practices

Modern engineering practices, including AI-assisted development and specification-driven approaches, are effectively embedded into engineering workflows, resulting in measurable improvements in developer productivity and delivery effectiveness.

1. Solution Excellence

Technology solutions delivered across NETS Solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, maintainable, and aligned with business objectives, resulting in improved solution quality and reduced delivery risk.

1. Architecture Governance & Standards

Architecture governance is institutionalized across NETS Solutions, with architecture reviews, standards, patterns, and reference architectures consistently adopted across delivery teams.

1. Technical Leadership & Capability Development

NETS Solutions is recognized internally and externally for strong architecture practices, engineering excellence, and a culture of continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and technical leadership.

Key ResponsibilitiesSolution Architecture Leadership

• Lead the architecture and design of complex, high-value, and strategic business solutions.
• Partner with clients and delivery teams to translate business objectives into practical, scalable, maintainable, and supportable solution architectures.
• Provide architectural leadership throughout the solution lifecycle, ensuring alignment between business objectives, architecture intent, and implementation outcomes.
• Guide delivery teams in addressing complex architectural, integration, performance, security, and operational challenges while ensuring adherence to established architecture principles and standards.
• Support strategic client engagements, proposals, and pre-sales activities by providing architecture expertise, solution advisory, and technical leadership.
• Act as the architecture escalation point for critical technology decisions and architectural challenges.

Technology Leadership & Engineering Innovation

• Evaluate emerging technologies, engineering practices, architectural approaches, and solution options, and provide recommendations that improve solution quality, engineering effectiveness, delivery outcomes, and long-term sustainability.
• Assess technologies, platforms, and integration approaches to balance business objectives, delivery risks, maintainability, supportability, and operational requirements.

AI-Assisted Engineering & Modern Development Practices

• Drive the adoption of AI-assisted software engineering practices to improve productivity, software quality, and delivery outcomes.
• Establish standards, governance, guardrails, and success measures for the responsible use of AI-assisted development tools and workflows, ensuring compliance with security, quality, and regulatory requirements.
• Champion modern development approaches, including specification-driven development, architecture-driven delivery, and AI-enabled engineering practices.
• Evaluate and recommend AI-assisted development technologies and platforms, including tools for code generation, test generation, documentation, solution design, and engineering automation.
• Partner with delivery teams to embed AI-assisted development capabilities and modern engineering practices into the software development lifecycle.

Engineering Excellence & Capability Development

• Lead and mentor a team of architects, fostering technical leadership, collaboration, and professional growth.
• Establish and promote engineering standards, design patterns, best practices, and architectural principles across NETS Solutions.
• Build and cultivate communities of practice, technical learning programs, and knowledge-sharing initiatives that strengthen architecture capabilities, engineering competency, solution quality, and delivery effectiveness.
• Coach architects, engineers, and technical leaders in architecture practices, solution design, modern engineering approaches, and AI-assisted development practices.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, engineering excellence, innovation, and technical craftsmanship.
• Contribute to the technical reputation of NETS Solutions through thought leadership, industry engagement, technical presentations, and the sharing of architecture and engineering best practices.

Architecture Governance & Assurance

• Define, maintain, and govern architecture principles, engineering standards, reference patterns, and solution design practices across NETS Solutions.
• Establish and continuously improve architecture governance processes, review frameworks, and design assurance practices.
• Lead architecture reviews for strategic initiatives and provide oversight on architectural decisions, design quality, and technology risk management.
• Ensure solution designs appropriately address architectural, security, operational, and regulatory requirements relevant to the client and business context.
• Act as a trusted architecture advisor to clients and delivery teams, helping evaluate solution options, technology approaches, implementation considerations, and architectural trade-offs.
• Drive consistency, reusability, scalability, maintainability, and supportability across solution deliveries through the adoption of architecture standards and proven design patterns.

Key Requirements

Education and Experience

• Minimum 15 years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or related technology leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading architecture design and governance for large-scale, high-availability, high-transaction-volume systems.
• Experience establishing architecture standards, governance frameworks, and review processes across multiple delivery teams.
• Proven experience leading and influencing cross-functional teams in complex technology environments.
• Experience supporting strategic business initiatives, technical solutioning, and major transformation