Lead Architect / Principal Engineer

Litmus • Santa Clara, CA

5d

About The Position

Litmus is building the data foundation that powers industrial AI. AI doesn’t work without real-world, contextualized data - Litmus makes that data usable. As AI adoption accelerates, most industrial environments still can’t access or use their operational data. We solve that gap. We’re a growth-stage software company helping manufacturers access, structure, and use real-time data from machines, systems, and sensors at the edge. Our platform sits at the intersection of edge computing, AI, and industrial operations, enabling some of the world’s largest companies to run operations in real time, reduce downtime, and optimize production. Backed by leading investors and trusted by global manufacturers and partners like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, and Mitsubishi, Litmus is powering the shift toward software-defined manufacturing.

Requirements

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with a clear track record of org-wide architectural impact.
• Expert-level Go and deep knowledge of distributed systems design, microservices, and large-scale service architectures.
• Mastery of Docker and Kubernetes — you've designed production-grade, large-scale deployments and know where things break.
• Deep Linux/Unix expertise — you understand the systems your architecture runs on, from the OS level up.
• Proven ability to make irreversible architectural decisions thoughtfully, with an eye on long-term consequences.
• Strong communicator — you can make complex technical tradeoffs clear to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience leading through influence, not authority — you bring people along rather than dictating direction.
• Solid understanding of cloud-native infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps best practices.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with industrial IoT, edge computing, or real-time data pipelines (MQTT, NATS, OPC-UA).
• Published Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), technical writing, or open source contributions.
• Background in platform engineering, developer productivity, or DevSecOps.
• Experience with multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategies.
• Time at a high-growth startup — you've felt the pressure of scaling fast and learned from it.

Responsibilities

• Own the overall technical architecture of the platform — set the long-term vision and make the hard calls that balance speed, scale, and maintainability.
• Drive architectural decisions across multiple teams and systems, ensuring consistency, reliability, and developer velocity.
• Identify systemic engineering problems early and lead solutions that create org-wide leverage.
• Partner with engineering leads to design and review critical systems before they're built — not after.
• Champion and standardize engineering patterns, tooling, and infrastructure best practices across the organization.
• Evaluate emerging technologies with clear-eyed judgment and guide adoption where it genuinely moves the needle.
• Mentor and develop senior and staff engineers — raise the technical bar and help your colleagues do their best work.
• Represent engineering architecture in cross-functional discussions with product, operations, and leadership.
• Contribute to hiring decisions and help shape what world-class engineering looks like at our company.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed