Platform Infrastructure Principal Architect

Accela•Birmingham, AL

20h•$175,000 - $185,000•Remote

About The Position

The Principal Platform Infrastructure Architect serves as the technical authority for Accela's cloud platform architecture, responsible for defining and evolving the foundational technology strategy that supports the company's SaaS offerings. This role partners across Engineering, Product, Security, SRE, and Platform teams to establish scalable, secure, and compliant architecture patterns while driving modernization initiatives across a complex multi-tenant environment. The Principal Architect influences technical direction across multiple teams without direct authority and ensures architectural decisions align with long-term business and product objectives.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
10+ years of experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
5+ years of experience in a Principal Architect, Staff Architect, or equivalent technical leadership role within a SaaS environment.
Deep expertise in Microsoft Azure, including AKS, APIM, networking, identity, security, and infrastructure services.
Strong Kubernetes architecture experience, including workload design, multi-tenancy, RBAC, GitOps, and platform operations.
Experience architecting and operating large-scale multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
Demonstrated success influencing technical direction across multiple engineering teams without direct management authority.
Experience working within regulated environments requiring compliance with frameworks such as FedRAMP, GovRAMP, PCI-DSS, or SOC2.
Strong communication skills with the ability to influence technical and business stakeholders at multiple levels of the organization.

Nice To Haves

Experience modernizing monolithic applications into cloud-native architectures.
Experience integrating acquired products, platforms, or identity systems into a unified architecture.
Expertise with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform or OpenTofu.
Familiarity with service mesh technologies, APIOps practices, and hybrid cloud migration strategies.
Experience designing AI/ML platform infrastructure or supporting enterprise AI initiatives.
Prior experience serving as an architecture leader within a high-growth SaaS or GovTech organization.
Industry certifications related to cloud architecture, security, or Kubernetes administration.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end architecture for Accela's cloud platform, including Azure infrastructure, networking, Kubernetes, identity, security, and platform services.
Define and maintain platform architecture standards, reference patterns, and technical guardrails to support scalability, reliability, and operational excellence.
Lead architecture reviews and drive technical decision-making through the Architecture Decision Record (ADR) process.
Develop long-term technical strategy for modernization initiatives, including cloud-native transformation, platform consolidation, and infrastructure evolution.
Establish architectural approaches for multi-tenant SaaS environments, including tenant isolation, observability, resiliency, and data residency requirements.
Partner with Engineering, Product, Security, Compliance, and Operations teams to align architecture with business objectives and regulatory requirements.
Translate compliance requirements, including FedRAMP, GovRAMP, PCI-DSS, and SOC2, into scalable technical capabilities and platform controls.
Define target-state architecture for shared services and cross-product capabilities spanning multiple acquired technology platforms.
Govern architecture exceptions and provide guidance on complex technical trade-offs impacting multiple engineering organizations.
Mentor and coach senior engineers, staff engineers, and architects, fostering architectural best practices and technical excellence.
Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends to inform platform strategy and future investments.