What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal Software Architect position at Carlsmed?
Position Description
As Principal Software Architect, you will work on projects related to proprietary implants, instrumentation, and design automation systems to enable personalized surgery. In this role, you will be the technical cornerstone of our organization, responsible for designing scalable systems that support our current needs while enabling future growth. You will collaborate with senior leadership to align technical strategy with business objectives and mentor teams in implementing architectural best practices.
Responsibilities
- Define and drive the technical vision and roadmap for our entire platform
- Design scalable, maintainable architectures for complex distributed systems
- Establish technical standards and best practices across the organization
- Lead architectural reviews and provide technical governance
- Make critical technology choices that impact the entire organization
- Mentor senior engineers and technical leads in architectural thinking
- Drive innovation and keep our technology stack modern and competitive
- Collaborate with senior leadership to align technical strategy with business goals
- Identify and mitigate technical risks across the organization
- Guide teams in implementing Node.js-based microservices architecture
- Design and govern GraphQL schema architecture across multiple services
- Establish patterns for scalable React applications and component libraries
- Architect database solutions using PostgreSQL for high-scale applications
- Define API standards and integration patterns across the platform
- Lead proof-of-concept initiatives for new technologies
- Drive technical spikes to validate architectural decisions
Qualifications
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science
- Experience: 5 years of leading development teams and 10 – 15 years of building software systems experience required
- Experience with spine or orthopedics highly desired
Skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication
- Ability to perform high quality work with speed
- Willingness to wear multiple hats when needed to enable excellent patient outcomes
- Deep expertise in Node.js ecosystem and distributed systems
- Advanced knowledge of GraphQL, including federation and gateway patterns
- Expert-level understanding of React architecture and performance optimization
- Extensive experience with PostgreSQL at scale, including sharding and replication
- Proven track record of leading large-scale technical initiatives
- Strong understanding of system design, scalability, and performance
- Experience with high-traffic, distributed systems
- Excellence in technical communication and documentation
- Track record of mentoring senior engineers and technical leads
Nice To Have Skills
- Experience with Prisma in large-scale applications
- Knowledge of modern application frameworks like Remix
- iOS architecture experience for enterprise applications
- Experience with multiple cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)
- Background in API gateway and service mesh technologies
- Experience with event-driven architectures and message queuing
- Knowledge of security best practices and compliance requirements
Equal Opportunity Employer
Carlsmed is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. Carlsmed is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know.
