Principal Application Architect

Role - Principal Application Architect

Location - Chicago, IL - Onsite

Primary expectation:
A hands-on architectural leader who owns application or platform architecture end-to-end and ensures quality, scalability, and alignment with product needs.

Must-have signals (non-negotiable):

Has independently owned architecture for at least one large application or platform in production
Regularly partners with Product Owners / Managers to translate business needs into system design
Clearly owns non-functional requirements:
Reliability
Availability
Security
Performance
Has led modernization efforts (monolith → microservices, cloud migration, major refactors)
Coaches engineers and guides other architects or senior developers
Comfortable making architecture tradeoff decisions (cost vs scale, speed vs durability)
Can explain why certain patterns or technologies were chosen
Nice-to-have:

Experience defining architecture standards or reference designs
Involvement in architecture reviews across multiple teams
Some exposure to roadmap or long-term planning