Sr. Data Architect, Large Scale Distributed Systems

Proofpoint • Sunnyvale, CA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced Senior Architect to lead the design and evolution of enterprise-scale distributed systems supporting 50M+ connected sensors and high-volume event processing pipelines. This role is critical to building and operating mission-critical backend platforms that process millions of events per second across both synchronous and asynchronous architectures, with stringent requirements for scalability, reliability, security, and performance. The ideal candidate brings a proven track record of architecting and scaling production-grade systems at extreme scale, along with the ability to drive technical strategy, governance, and cross-functional alignment in a complex enterprise environment.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in distributed systems and backend architecture
• Demonstrated success in scaling systems to: 50M+ connected devices/sensors, or Comparable high-scale environments (e.g., IoT, telecom, fintech, ad-tech, infrastructure platforms)
• Proven experience with high-throughput event-driven architectures in production environments
• Deep understanding of distributed systems concepts, including: CAP theorem, consistency models, and trade-offs, Partitioning, replication, and sharding strategies, Event delivery semantics (at-least-once, exactly-once, idempotency)
• Strong experience with: Streaming and messaging systems (Kafka, Pulsar, or equivalent), Real-time and batch processing frameworks, Scalable NoSQL and analytical data stores
• Expertise in designing: Low-latency, high-throughput APIs, Event-driven and asynchronous processing systems, Multi-region, highly available architectures
• Strong programming proficiency in one or more of: Go, Java, Scala, or Rust

Nice To Haves

• Experience with large-scale IoT or telemetry platforms
• Familiarity with edge-to-cloud architectures
• Experience operating in multi-cloud or hybrid environments
• Knowledge of enterprise security frameworks, data governance, and compliance (e.g., SOC2, ISO, GDPR)
• Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines and large-scale analytics platforms

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the architecture of large-scale distributed systems capable of ingesting and processing high-velocity data streams from 50M+ sensors
• Design resilient systems across synchronous (API-driven) and asynchronous (event-driven, streaming) paradigms
• Establish architectural standards for scalability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization
• Architect real-time and batch data pipelines for high-throughput ingestion, transformation, and storage
• Drive design decisions across streaming, processing, and storage layers to ensure optimal performance and cost efficiency
• Enable support for time-series, event-driven, and analytical workloads
• Define and enforce enterprise architecture principles, standards, and best practices
• Evaluate and guide adoption of modern data technologies, including: Distributed messaging systems (e.g., Kafka, Pulsar), Scalable data stores (e.g., Cassandra, DynamoDB, Bigtable, ClickHouse, Elasticsearch), Stream and batch processing frameworks (e.g., Flink, Spark, Beam)
• Ensure alignment with security, compliance, and data governance requirements
• Establish and operationalize SLAs, SLOs, and error budgets
• Design for high availability, multi-region resilience, and disaster recovery
• Implement enterprise-grade observability frameworks (monitoring, logging, tracing)
• Partner with engineering, product, security, and data teams to align architecture with organizational objectives
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and architectural oversight across multiple teams
• Lead design reviews and ensure adherence to architectural standards

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• Comprehensive benefits
• Career success on your terms
• Flexible work environment
• Annual wellness and community outreach days
• Always on recognition for your contributions
• Global collaboration and networking opportunities
• flexible time off
• a comprehensive well-being program with two paid Wellbeing Days and two paid Volunteer Days per year
• a three-week Work from Anywhere option

What This Job Offers

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