Systems Architect, Instrumentation R&D Lead

Alcon • Lake Forest, CA

15d • $254,150 - $328,900 • Onsite

About The Position

The Lead Systems Architect defines and governs technical architecture strategy across Alcon’s Instrumentation R&D portfolio. The role enables scalable, modular, and reusable products and technologies to accelerate innovation, improve development efficiency, and increase leverage across platforms. This position is on-site in Lake Forest, California, and includes travel of up to 20%.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent years of directly related experience; alternatively, high school plus 18 years, an associate degree plus 14 years, a master’s degree plus 7 years, or a Ph.D. plus 6 years.
• Fluent ability to read, write, understand, and communicate in English.
• 10 years of relevant experience.

Nice To Haves

• 15 or more years of engineering experience in complex product development environments, including substantial leadership in systems engineering, architecture, platform development, or advanced technology development.
• Experience in medical devices or another regulated product development environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture across hardware, software, electronics, firmware, optics, mechanical systems, and system integration boundaries.
• Experience with systems engineering, MBSE, SysML, requirements management, architecture modeling, interface management, design verification, risk management, and configuration management.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain the Instrumentation R&D architecture strategy, principles, and roadmap.
• Define future-state product and technology architectures across the portfolio.
• Connect business strategy, product roadmaps, technology investments, and architecture priorities.
• Lead architecture reviews and governance for major development programs.
• Serve as the escalation and decision authority for cross-platform architecture matters.
• Establish systems engineering methods, practices, and standards across the organization.
• Drive adoption of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and systems-thinking approaches.
• Develop frameworks for requirements management, functional decomposition, interface management, integration, verification, and validation.
• Improve the consistency and effectiveness of systems engineering across sites and product teams.
• Mentor engineering leaders and practitioners in architecture and systems engineering.
• Identify and prioritize architecture reuse opportunities across products, programs, and technology platforms.
• Define modular architectures that support scalability, flexibility, serviceability, and future product evolution.
• Establish reusable system building blocks, common interfaces, and reference architectures.
• Balance product-specific requirements with enterprise reuse and lifecycle considerations.
• Track reuse adoption and the value delivered through shared architecture assets.
• Partner with product-platform leaders to ensure architecture supports portfolio and program objectives.
• Facilitate technical trade-off decisions involving performance, risk, cost, schedule, and reuse.
• Resolve architectural conflicts across programs and engineering disciplines.
• Lead architecture forums and technical decision reviews.
• Establish architecture standards, decision criteria, and review processes.
• Maintain documentation of architecture decisions, interfaces, and technical rationale.
• Monitor adoption of architectural standards and address justified exceptions.
• Partner with Communities of Practice to translate enterprise architecture into discipline-level methods and standards.
• Assess systems engineering and architecture capability needs across the organization.
• Develop technical talent through coaching, mentoring, and targeted learning.
• Support recruitment and development of systems engineering expertise.
• Build a culture of technical rigor, reuse, and enterprise learning.

Benefits

• Health benefits
• Life benefits
• Retirement benefits
• Flexible time off
• Focused growth and development opportunities
• Short-term and long-term incentive opportunities for eligible roles
• Programs supporting health and well-being, financial security, and retirement planning

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior